Retired Inquirer sportswriter Mike Jensen is chosen for the Big 5 Hall of Fame
Jensen was honored for more than three decades of covering college basketball across the region at all levels. The class also includes four players and a coach from Big 5 teams.
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/pmn/KY3O6I7ERNGNFPJUDIBH2WO6NQ.jpg)
This year’s Big 5 Hall of Fame class includes not just a leading figure from each of the traditional five schools, but once again a member of the media.
Longtime Inquirer college basketball writer Mike Jensen was honored for more than three decades of covering the sport across the region at all levels, men and women, and every NCAA division.
After retiring from The Inquirer in 2023, Jensen earlier this year won the U.S. Basketball Writers Association’s Jim O’Connell Award for excellence in beat writing. Jensen currently is working on a book about Philadelphia basketball.
The Hall of Fame nod drew praise across social media. Longtime Daily News sports editor Pat McLoone called it a “no brainer,” and veteran Associated Press reporter Dan Gelston said Jensen’s work “set the standard in college hoops in Philly.”
Among the players recognized, three come from the women’s side of the game. Temple’s LaKeisha Eaddy led the Owls to four straight NCAA Tournament appearances from 2006 to 10, the first two under coach Dawn Staley and the last two under Tonya Cardoza. When she graduated, Eaddy was Temple’s all-time leader in steals and No. 2 in assists and still ranks Nos. 2. and 3 in the respective categories.
» READ MORE: A look back at Mike Jensen's columns and reporting for The Inquirer
Villanova’s Courtney Mix (2000-04) also played in four straight NCAA Tournaments, including a run to the Elite Eight in 2003 that remains the deepest run in Wildcats women’s history. The program has reached the second weekend of March Madness once since, when Maddy Siegrist led the way in 2023.
At St. Joseph’s, Amy Facer helped win the team’s first Atlantic 10 women’s hoops title in 1997, her senior year. She also reached the NCAA Tournament with the Hawks in 1994 and 1995. After graduating, she played professionally in Europe for 11 years.
The one men’s player recognized this season is former Penn star Ira Bowman. He played two seasons at the Palestra from 1994 to 1996. He won Ivy League titles in both seasons, teaming up with Jerome Allen and Matt Maloney in the first. His senior year marked the end of the Quakers’ most famous era since its 1979 Final Four team.
Bowman went on to play in the NBA for the 76ers and Atlanta Hawks and for a range of international teams. He then turned to coaching and spent six seasons as an assistant at Penn under Allen and then Steve Donahue. He moved to Auburn’s coaching staff in 2018 and has been there ever since.
In 2019, Bowman was implicated in a fraudulent admissions case at Penn in which Allen took a bribe to try to get a recruit into the school. Bowman was suspended for 80 days, then reinstated.
La Salle’s honoree this year is a coach, John Giannini. His 212 wins on Olney Avenue are second only to another Hall of Famer, Speedy Morris. In 2013, Giannini oversaw the Explorers’ epic run to the Elite Eight, highlighted by Tyrone Garland’s famed “Southwest Philly Floater” that beat Mississippi in the Sweet 16.
Earlier that season, La Salle split the Big 5 title with Temple. It was the Explorers’ first City Series crown in 15 years, and it remains their only one this century.
This season’s Hall of Fame class will be recognized at the women’s and men’s Big 5 Classic tripleheaders next month. The women’s event is Dec. 6 at Villanova’s Finneran Pavilion, and the men’s event is Dec. 7 at the Wells Fargo Center.