Penn hired Fran McCaffery as its men’s basketball coach Thursday, two weeks after he was fired at Iowa after a season in which 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.
He hopes he can find that kind of success again at Penn, which has made the NCAA 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 its home court at the Palestra in Philadelphia in 2018. As a No. 16 seed, Penn 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.
McCaffery, 65, was Iowa’s all-time wins leader and longest-tenured coach in program history after 15 years at the school.
He coached at Lehigh, UNC Greensboro and Siena before former Iowa athletic director Gary Barta hired him in 2010. McCaffery 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.
His Iowa tenure was marked by a number of high-profile outbursts, and his final game at the school ended early when he was ejected following back-to-back technicals in the second half of a Big Ten tournament loss.
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 1988-89 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 in a statement. “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.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
