historical rivals of sju are the la salle explorers, being the only two catholic universities actually in philadelphia proper. for decades, though, the main rival has been the villanova university wildcats. the annual basketball game between sju and villanova is locally referred to as the holy war.villanova leads the all-time series 47 to 25. st. joseph's also has a heated rivalry with the temple university owls. because games against drexel university are in-city, the two teams are sometimes considered rivals but saint joseph's leads the all-time series 43 to 6. the all-time series between la salle and the hawks is 63 to 49 in sju's favor. they are losing the all-time series against temple 63 to 75 and winning the series with penn 45 to 32. overall, the hawks are 112–83 in the big 5 which once was the best team among big 5 schools.