Battle of 33rd Street

Battle of 33rd Street
Sport Basketball
First meeting December 14, 1920
Penn 28, Drexel 10
Latest meeting December 28, 2016
Penn 75, Drexel 67
Next meeting TBA
Statistics
Meetings total 26
All-time series Penn leads 16–10
Largest victory Penn, 48–16 (1922)
Longest win streak Penn, 7 (1920–1928)
Current win streak Penn, 1 (2016–Present)

The Battle of 33rd Street rivalry refers to the men's college basketball rivalry between Drexel University and University of Pennsylvania ('Penn') in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The rivalry is fueled by the proximity of the schools to each other, as the rivalry is known for being the closest geographical rivalry in US college sports. The campuses of the two schools share a physical border, and the teams' home courts are mere blocks away from each other, as Drexel's Daskalakis Athletic Center is located at 34th and Market Street, and Penn's historic Palestra is located on 33rd Street south of Walnut Street. The series was originally played at the Palestra every year until 2015 with the exception of the 2008 game, when Penn played at Drexel University for the first time in team history. Beginning in 2015, the location began alternating between the two schools.

The teams began playing against each other annually during the 1996–97 NCAA basketball season. Previous to this season, the teams faced each other only eight times. Seven of those games were during the 1920s, where Penn won all seven, and the eighth game was in 1988, where Drexel won 70–69.

Results

Drexel victoriesPenn victories
  • The game on December 19, 1928 was scheduled to be the first game played at Drexel, in the newly constructed Curtis Hall, however construction was not completed in time and the game was moved to Palestra.[1]
  • In 2008, at the first game in the series to be played at the Daskalakis Athletic Center, the game was featured on ESPN Hoops Marathon and tipped off at 10 a.m.

Hiatus in 2011, 2013, 2014, and 2017

In the 2011–12 season, Drexel and Penn did not play against each other, ending a 14-year streak due to a dispute over where the game should be played. In 1997, the teams agreed to play their games at the Palestra, as this is where the Philadelphia Big 5 and City 6 games are generally played at. However, since then, Drexel's basketball team greatly improved, and Drexel favored changing the rivalry so that the location would be alternated between the schools each season. The teams resumed play in the 2012–13 season at The Palestra, but did not play again until the 2015–16 season, when Penn agreed to resume the series at Drexel. From that point forward, the location of the game will supposedly alternate between The Palestra and Daskalakis Athletic Center each season, although the teams would not play each other in the 2017–18 season.

Other Events

The schools also occasionally face each other in other sports, including lacrosse, women's basketball, and field hockey.

On March 11, 2014, Drexel and Penn faced each other in the first round of the 2014 NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse Championship. The teams earned automatic bids by winning each of their conference tournaments, and marked Drexel's first invitation to the national championship. The game was played at Franklin Field, and the Dragons defeated the Quakers by score of 16–11 to advance to the tournament quarterfinals.

References

  1. "New Gym Informally Opened by Osteopathy Game" (PDF). The Triangle. 16 January 1929. p. 1. Retrieved 24 March 2017.
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