Well, that didn’t last long.
With Billy Lange moving on to a player development role with the New York Knicks, Saint Joseph’s has appointed former Cornell and Penn head coach Steve Donahue as the program’s new head coach, the school confirmed Wednesday. Donahue joined Lange’s staff as associate head coach back in May after being fired by Penn.
Donahue coached Penn for a decade but was axed after leading the Quakers to a seventh-place finish last season. Offensive shortcomings and the departures of Jordan Dingle, Tyler Perkins, and Clark Slajchert in recent seasons led to a free fall for the legendary Ancient Eight program, which has since brought in program alum Fran McCaffery to help right the ship.
“It is a program I watched closely from our great match-ups in the Big 5 and I’ve long admired St. Joe’s for its legacy, tradition and dedicated fan base,” Donahue said in a statement. “But nothing prepared me for what I saw when I joined the team. We are athletic, deep and talented; we have the people, culture and first-class facilities. We have everything we need to win.”
This season will be Donahue’s 24th season as a Division I head coach, but his first in the Atlantic 10 Conference. Overall, Donahue is 331-344 (.490) across stops at Cornell, Boston College and Penn. Most famously, he led the 2009-10 Big Red squad to the program’s second Sweet 16 berth and later led the Quakers to the Ivy League championship and an NCAA berth in 2018.
At Saint Joseph’s, Donahue will be tasked with improving on the Hawks’ first-round NIT exit from a year ago. The Jesuit Philly-based school last made the NCAA Tournament in 2016.