Five things about Penn men’s basketball in new Fran McCaffery era

Penn basketball looks a lot different than it did when I last wrote about the program roughly three weeks ago after Fran McCaffery’s hire as head coach became official.

Where to begin? The new stable of assistant coaches? The official return of leading scorer Ethan Roberts? The ex-five-star recruit and power conference transfer who just committed? The new 7-footer coming over from the pros in Norway?

There’s an unmistakable air of optimism around the program right now, and with good reason. In the spirit of the estimable football writer Peter King, here’s “five things I think I think” about the Quakers at this juncture of the offseason:

I think the assistant coaches check all the right boxes.

It’s obvious that McCaffery was trying to cover as many different talent pools as possible when he built his staff.

Lead assistant Tristan Spurlock has high-major recruiting credentials and a talent development track record from his time on the bench at Iowa alongside McCaffery. Ronald Moore has on-the-ground experience running AAU teams and local ties to Philadelphia. Ben Luber has a combination of Division I coaching experience at Rider and Binghamton and deep familiarity with Philadelphia-area high schools through his most recent job as head coach at the George School.

McCaffery has surrounded himself with people who either understand his coaching style and philosophy, have institutional knowledge of the Philadelphia basketball scene, or a combination of both (Moore played under McCaffery at Siena, delivering an all-time NCAA Tournament moment in the process). We’ll see how the 2026 recruiting class shakes out, but as of now, it’s safe to say that McCaffery is following a good process.

It’s also nice to see that McCaffery’s assistants are social media-forward. Both Spurlock and Luber are active on Instagram and X, posting pictures of practice and life on the job. The Penn program seems accessible through the coaching transition, which is a positive for both fans and media alike.

I think the addition of forward TJ Power is another example of “good process.”

I play poker as a serious hobby, and one of the lessons which helped me become a profitable player was learning to emphasize process-oriented thinking over results-oriented thinking. In other words, don’t praise yourself when you make a bad play and get bailed out by a lucky runout of cards, and don’t beat yourself up when you make correct decisions to maximize your expected profit and the cards just don’t cooperate.

The recruitment of Virginia transfer TJ Power will be a test of Penn fans’ process-oriented thinking. Power’s numbers at Virginia this past season and Duke a year earlier were underwhelming. But the traits Power possesses — shooting ability combined with a 6-foot-9 frame, a consensus top-25 recruiting pedigree — are the ones Penn should absolutely be pursuing in the transfer portal.

In a best-case scenario, Power finds his level, terrorizes the Ivy League as a true “stretch four,” and maybe even re-establishes himself as an NBA Draft prospect. But if it doesn’t work out and Power looks more like the spot-up shooting specialist he was at Duke, nothing is really lost.

Power was a player Fran McCaffery coveted back when McCaffery was still at Iowa and Power was in high school. If McCaffery didn’t have a specific plan for coaching up Power, then the sophomore wouldn’t have been Penn’s highest-priority transfer portal prospect.

Penn fans will have to, with apologies to ex-Philadelphia 76ers general manager Sam Hinkie, not only trust McCaffery’s process and vision for Power, but be willing to let the coach try that process again and again, even if Power doesn’t develop into a star. 

I think it’s time to “load the wagon.”

 You can credit the phrase above to junior wing Ethan Roberts, whom I had admittedly assumed was heading for the transfer portal for the bulk of Penn’s lost Ivy season.

Roberts delivered a big lift to the Quakers’ prospects next season when he told 247 Sports’ Dushawn London he was going to remain with Penn and forgo the portal. The 16.8 points-per-game scorer has a skill set which meshes well with McCaffery’s offense and he should put up similar or better numbers in 2025-26.

So what does “load the wagon” mean, exactly? In the words of Roberts, delivered via The Daily Pennsylvanian: “See what dominoes fall, who we get. I’m curious to see what our roster’s gonna look like, but I’m just so excited that I’m gonna be on it.”

Roberts wants to see even more talent join the team and I’d expect him to get his wish. Spurlock said on X, “I don’t think we are done yet” after the Power news broke last weekend.

Where else can the Quakers add talent? There’s definitely room to add in the frontcourt. That aforementioned 7-footer, Norwegian William Ljones Kruse, certainly looks talented from his highlight reel, but it’s difficult to project immediate production for Ivy freshman bigs.

The roster could probably use another shooter, too, given Sam Brown’s decision to transfer (more on that below).

I think Sam Brown’s decision may be the fulcrum point of Penn’s offseason.

Things change quickly in college basketball now.

When I originally filed this story on Thursday night, I thought a return to Penn was very much on the table for the sophomore guard. I was all set to report, based on conversations I’ve had with a few industry sources, that McCaffery met earlier this week with Brown’s father, current San Antonio Spurs assistant and former Sixers head coach Brett Brown.

Now I think that meeting was to deliver some bad news. Pseudonymous college basketball insider Trilly Donovan reported early afternoon Friday that Brown is expected to transfer to Davidson in the Atlantic 10. The news should not come as a shock. Brown visited Davidson over the weekend and had begun following Davidson players on social media.

It is disappointing that Brown appears to be leaving, but Penn fans shouldn’t hold hard feelings against the sharpshooter for transferring. Brown was especially close to ousted Penn coach Steve Donahue, and the coaching change forced him to consider his options.

Brown did the right thing by Penn by entering the portal early, which allowed McCaffery and his staff to take their positions with eyes wide open about the situation and develop contingency plans. Now we’ll see how they respond to losing one of the team’s best players.

I think it was nice to see what The Daily Pennsylvanian reported on Thursday.

 The DP, citing sources around the Penn program, said the school is in talks to create a collective which would facilitate name, image and likeness (NIL) payments for men’s basketball players.

Fans able to read between the lines could see this story coming. The Kruse and Power announcements were made by both players’ NIL agents. Roberts has an NIL agent as well.

 McCaffery also told Penn broadcaster Vince Curran in a Penn Athletics podcast taped around his introductory press conference: “We have some folks that will step up and we’ll have an aggressive NIL program to the level that’s allowed in the Ivy League.”

I have no idea how the rest of the conference feels about the current state of college basketball, but the Penn athletic department is not sticking its head in the sand any longer.

The message is clear now: basketball recruits who come to Penn may not have to choose anymore between getting a degree at one of the best colleges in the world and getting paid.  

That kind of proposition, coupled with McCaffery’s coaching skills, could make Penn one of the best mid-major programs in the country if everything breaks right.

Miscellaneous thoughts:

• Keep an eye on Cam Thrower. The junior guard missed all of the 2024-25 season with a cast on his right arm/wrist but appears to be fully healthy now. Thrower closed the 2023-24 campaign strong and could be in line for significant minutes next year at the “one” and “two” guard spots, especially with Brown likely gone.
• The incoming freshman I unscientifically expect to have the most immediate impact is Ryan Altman, a 6-foot-6 wing who was dominant during his senior season at the Rivers School in Massachusetts. He was named most valuable player and defensive player of the year for his conference, the Independent School League. Altman has an impressive blend of shooting, athleticism and verticality.
• I’m excited for Penn’s December matchup against Rutgers during nonconference play. The Quakers haven’t played New Jersey’s flagship university in 50 years. It’s worth noting that McCaffery had an 11-3 record against Rutgers head coach Steve Pikiell during his time at Iowa.
• If TJ Power does pan out at Penn, I will hold bragging rights forever over my Duke alum wife. I also wouldn’t mind seeing the Quakers return to Cameron Indoor Stadium for the first time since New Year’s Day in 2012.
• Don’t be surprised if you see Steve Donahue on an opposing sideline next year. Donovan reported that he’s a leading candidate to replace Justin Scott as the top assistant at Saint Joseph’s. The Quakers are due to visit Hawk Hill in the 2025-26 season during Big 5 pod play.
• I think Brown’s decision to go to Davidson and play for Matt McKillop has a similar risk-reward profile as Tyler Perkins’ choice to join Villanova under Kyle Neptune. Both programs are or were led by coaches who got their respective positions because they were handpicked successors of program-defining coaches. Matt McKillop has a losing career record as a head coach and a career 35.2% winning percentage in A-10 play. Davidson may have gotten a recent injection of NIL money from Steph Curry, but it also lost its two best players — Reed Bailey and Bobby Durkin – to the transfer portal. It became obvious by December this past season that Neptune was going to lose his job. We may be saying the same thing about McKillop fairly soon, too.