HARTFORD, Conn.—Life is good for Jay Wright and his Villanova Wildcats these days. They have won the NCAA tournament two of the last three years and are entering their seventh straight NCAA tournament with a Big East regular season championship and a fifth conference tournament title.

The six seeded Cats were back here in familiar old Big East turf for the first-round game against 11th seed St. Mary’s at the aging XL Center, where they had so many battles against Jim Calhoun’s UConn teams. They are away from the dark clouds that are hovering over the Philadelphia Big 5, where Fran Dunphy of Temple and St. Joseph’s coach Phil Martelli are both out.

This is not the Big 5 I grew up with when I started attending doubleheaders at the Palestra 60 years ago at age 10.

The 69-year old Dunphy, the Big 5’s all time winningest coach with 580 career victories in his 30 years at Penn and Temple; and the 64-year old Martelli, who has spent 24 years as head coach at St. Joe’s and 10 more as an assistant, were both beloved institutions who grew up in suburban Philadelphia and never left home after falling in love with the game. They both won with honor and never had a whiff of scandal.

It’s sad their schools didn’t allow them to leave on their own terms. Dunphy was forced to retire last year after the Owls went through a 17-16 season and did not make the NCAA tournament. The decision was announced when Dunphy was at the Final Four before he could tell his staff or players. At least, Temple allowed Dunphy to take a victory lap and he made the most of it, coaching Temple to a 23-10 record and a spot in the NCAA tournament, where the Owls lost to Belmont Tuesday night in a First Four game at Dayton. St. Joe’s never considered that option with Martelli Monday afternoon, tossing him out on the street with a surprising lack of compassion.  

‘’He didn’t know,’’ Wright said. ‘We were sitting together at the Coaches vs. Cancer NCAA tournament breakfast Monday morning and Phil was talking about me about how he was to get to the Atlantic 10 meetings in Naples, Fla.’’

Martelli’s doesn’t have to worry about catching that flight. His life changed when he was told it was over after an injury plagued, 14-19 season. His fate was apparently ceiled last weekend by president Dr. Mark Reed and the Broad of Trustees and was signed off on by new Jill Bodensteiner, a former Notre Dame senior associate AD who replaced the highly respected Don DiJulia after he retired last June at age 74.

That special 2004 season, when Martelli was the toast of the city after coaching the Jameer Nelson-led Hawks to a perfect 27-0 regular season and an NCAA Elite Eight appearance, seems like ancient history. But the Hawks’ 28-8 Atlantic 10 championship season when they played Oregon down to the wire in 2016 was just three years ago. But in the what have you done for me lately world of college basketball, there were whispers Martelli’s job could be in jeopardy after the Hawks suffered through a third straight losing season.

Martelli might have turned things around next year with four returning starters and highly regarded Delaware transfer Ryan Daly. But we’ll never know.  Martelli would make a great TV analyst with his intelligent and comedic wit if he wants to go in that direction. But Martelli says he wants to coach again. ‘I will not be scarred by this,’’ he claimed. Dunphy feels the same way. They have too much value to be consigned to a dust bin.

Temple will replace Dunphy with assistant coach Aaron McKie, the former Temple star who spent 13 years in the NBA and was designated as the coach in waiting. St. Joe’s has no idea who they will hire but unless the Hawks hit a home run and hires someone with strong Philly ties, the administration at the City Line be haunted by the way the administration handled this.

“I was thinking about that last night,’’ Wright said. “I was in my hotel room watching Dunph’s last game. They had a camera shot of him walking into the locker room. It was emotional. Earlier, I was doing a radio show – it was Coach K’s radio show and I was on hold. The producer said, ‘Mike wants to know if it’s okay if they ask you about Phil. I said, ‘What?’ he said it just came across the wire, they parted ways. I got emotional.

“Philadelphia Big 5 basketball is a brotherhood. You know, you’re like brothers. You know, you’re like brothers, you want to kill each other just like brothers do if they’re playing in the back yard. But you do everything together. We hang out at the Jersey shore. We do ‘Coaches vs. Cancer.’

“It’s a sad day. The one thing in life that’s a definite is change. It’s going to happen to all of us. It’s just the day that it happens is really sad, a really sad day.’’

When Wright arrived at Villanova in 2002, aging Hall of Fame coach John Chaney was still at Temple. Dunphy was the king of the Ivies and Martelli had the best team in the Atlantic 10. Villanova was a sleeping giant. It took a while for Wright to break into the club. He has since moved past both of them, establishing Villanova as an elite national program.

Wright, at age 56, is now the Dean of the Big 5 coaches. He doesn’t look at it that way, though.

“I think Phil and Fran will always be the deans,’’ he said. “I’ll always be the little brother. I have a feeling whatever they do next is still going to be big in Philadelphia. They’re both institutions. I came up under them, learned a lot from them and I’ll be a little brother to them.’’

It was a sign of respect that used to be the hallmark of Big 5 schools.