McCaffery brings fiery brand name to alma mater Penn

Mar 27, 2025, 11:27 AM ET

Penn employed Fran McCaffery as its males’s basketball coach Thursday, 2 weeks after he was fired at Iowa after a season in which the Hawkeyes won their fewest games and had their lowest Huge 10 regular-season surface in 7 years.Penn fired Steve

Donahue previously this month after the Quakers went 8-19 in his ninth season on the job.McCaffery played 3 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 throughout McCaffery’s 3 seasons, winning 3 conference titles. He played in 2 NCAA tournaments.Editor’s Picks 2 Associated He hopes he can discover that sort of success again at Penn, which has made the

NCAA competition

just two times

since Fran Dunphy left after 2006. Penn made one NCAA competition look 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 general and 63-63 in conference play considering that Donahue took over in 2015. “My vision is to return Penn to prominence in the Ivy League

and beyond and bring an amazing design 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 employed him in 2010. McCaffery led the Hawkeyes to eight 20-win seasons and won a game in

four of seven NCAA competition appearances from 2012-13 to 2022-23. His Iowa period was marked by a variety of prominent outbursts, and his last game at the school ended early when he was ejected following back-to-back technicals in the 2nd half of a Huge Ten competition 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 9 weeks of the 2020 season, went wire-to-wire in 2021 in the

leading 15 of the AP poll for the first time given that the 1988-89 campaign and ranked No. 16 in the final survey in 2022. “Fran has had success at every level of Department I and is enthusiastic about restoring our program to magnificence, “Penn athletic director Alanna Wren said in a statement.” His energy and enthusiasm for leading young men appeared throughout the procedure and he has proven

to be committed to player advancement and relationship-building with his student-athletes throughout his storied profession.”The Associated Press contributed to this report.