Philly Hoop Group Classic

The Philly Hoop Group Classic starts on Sunday with Towson playing at Niagara. I’m not sure if I missed this last year because I wasn’t paying attention or if I ran across it this year because I’ve spent a lot of time looking at the college basketball schedule this year while setting up Ice Cream Helmet College Basketball Picks.

Eight teams participate in the Classic. The teams are divided into two brackets: Liberty and Independence. It starts off with each team playing 2 games against teams from the other bracket at one of schools. Thanksgiving weekend at the Palestra there are 4 games on Friday. The winners and losers match up on Saturday for another 4 games. It is a little odd that it ends there. Each bracket winds up with a winner, they don’t play each other. Still, I like that its lots of basketball each day at The Palestra.

Last year was the first year for the Classic. Seton Hall beat Virginia to win the Independence Bracket. Drexel topped Loyola to win the Liberty Bracket.

This year’s teams:
Liberty Bracket
Hartford
Monmouth
Niagara
NJIT

Independence Bracket
Penn State
Rhode Island
Towson
Villanova

Penn state will play home games against NJIT (Nov 17) and Hartford (Nov 20). Before the bracket portion they have a home game against New Hampshire (Nov 23) and a game against Penn (Nov 25) at The Palestra. Then they will play the 2 bracket games at The Palestra. So Penn State will play 3 games in a row at The Palestra.