Penn hires ex-Iowa coach Fran McCaffery to lift fallen program back into Ivy contention
Penn hired Fran McCaffery as its men's basketball coach on Thursday, two weeks after he was fired at Iowa in a season where the Hawkeyes won their fewest games and had their lowest Big Ten regular-season finish in seven years.
Penn
fired Steve Donahue
earlier this month after the Quakers went 8-19 in his ninth season on the job.
McCaffery played three seasons with the Quakers and led the Ivy League in assists (105) and steals (51) as a senior in 1981-82. Penn went 36-6 in Ivy League play across McCaffery's three seasons, winning three conference titles. He played in two NCAA Tournaments.
McCaffery hopes he can find that kind of success again at Penn, which has made the tournament only twice since Fran Dunphy left after 2006. Penn made one NCAA Tournament appearance during Donahue's tenure when it won the Ivy League Tournament on their home court at the Palestra in Philadelphia in 2018. As a No. 16 seed, the team lost to top-seeded Kansas in the first round.
The Quakers went 131-130 overall and 63-63 in conference play since Donahue took over in 2015.
"My vision is to return Penn to prominence in the Ivy League and beyond and bring an exciting style of play to the Palestra," McCaffery said.
The 65-year-old McCaffery was Iowa's all-time wins leader and longest-tenured coach in program history after 15 years at the school.
McCaffery was head coach at Lehigh, UNC Greensboro and Siena before former Iowa athletic director Gary Barta hired him in 2010. He led the Hawkeyes to eight 20-win seasons and won a game in four of seven NCAA Tournament appearances from 2012-13 to 2022-23.
McCaffery is 548-384 overall, a .588 winning percentage.
Iowa was ranked as high as No. 3 nationally during both the 2016 and 2021 seasons. The Hawkeyes were ranked for 16 consecutive weeks in 2019, the final nine weeks of the 2020 season, went wire-to-wire in 2021 in the top 15 of the AP Poll for the first time since the 1989 campaign, and ranked No. 16 in the final poll in 2022.
"Fran has had success at every level of Division I and is passionate about restoring our program to glory," Penn athletic director Alanna Wren said Thursday. "His energy and enthusiasm for leading young men was apparent throughout the process and he has proven to be committed to player development and relationship-building with his student-athletes throughout his storied career."
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