Tyler Perkins

Fran McCaffery returns to Penn as new head men’s basketball coach

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New Penn head coach Fran McCaffery has an overall record of 548-207, while taking four different programs to the NCAA Tournament. (Iowa Athletics)

With apologies to Thomas Wolfe, it appears you can go home again… even if it takes 42 years.

Former Iowa men’s basketball coach and 1982 Penn alum Fran McCaffery was named Penn’s new coach in a Penn Athletics announcement Thursday.

The hire will be a homecoming for McCaffery, who grew up in Northwest Philadelphia, attended La Salle College High School and played for the Quakers from 1979 to 1982.

“I am thrilled to bring Fran back to Penn and Philadelphia as our next head men’s basketball coach,” Penn director of athletics Alanna Wren said in the press release. “Fran has had success at every level of Division I and is passionate about restoring our program to glory. 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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Elegy for the Killer Ps

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Not so long ago, the Princeton Tigers and the Penn Quakers – the Killer Ps – ruled the realm of Ivy League men’s basketball.  

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Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 82-72 loss at Brown

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Any realistic hope Penn had of reaching Ivy Madness died on Saturday night after the Red and Blue staggered through a road loss to Brown, 82-72, on the second night of a back-to-back.

Though Penn (6-16, 2-7 Ivy) was competitive throughout the evening and cut the deficit to as little as one point in the second half, the Quakers never led. A stepback three from Brown (12-10, 4-5 Ivy) superstar Kino Lilly Jr. pushed the Bears’ lead back to four with 10 minutes to go and Penn never seriously threatened after.

Brown is now effectively three games ahead of Penn thanks to its head-to-head sweep of the Red and Blue.

Instead of focusing on the minutiae of the game itself, this Saturday’s Quakeaways will serve as a progress report on the long-term questions I asked a few weeks ago:

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Ivy League opts out out of revenue-sharing provisions

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A Tuesday email from Ivy League executive director Robin Harris addressed to league coaches and student-athletes reported the league would opt out of the revenue-sharing element of a pending $2.8 billion NCAA settlement forged last year aimed at paying athletes a share of the revenue colleges made from their performances.

In May 2024, the NCAA announced a $2.8 billion settlement to cover “back pay” to student-athletes from 2016 to 2024 resulting from lost name, image and likeness (NIL) money.

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Quakeaway from Penn men’s basketball’s 93-49 loss at Villanova

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Disheartening. Discouraging. Disgusting.

Whatever negative adjective you’d want to throw out would probably apply to how Penn performed in a 93-49 loss at Villanova on Tuesday night.

That 44-point margin of defeat is the worst loss Penn has ever suffered against the Wildcats in a series that spans 71 games and dates back to 1910. The prior record-holder was the 43-point loss Penn took to Villanova in the 1971 Elite Eight, which ruined an undefeated season for the Quakers and is widely considered the worst defeat in program history.

This team is galaxies away from that 1970-71 squad. The Quakers actually played pretty well offensively in the early stages on Tuesday, using good ball movement and better three-point shooting to draw even with the Wildcats at the under-eight media timeout in the first half.

What happened from there was nothing short of a collapse. Penn went roughly 14 minutes of game time without scoring a field goal as Villanova used red-hot outside shooting to put together a killer 30-3 run.

As for Tyler Perkins, who got his first chance on Tuesday to face his former Penn teammates after his offseason transfer up the Main Line to ‘Nova? The sophomore guard scored seven points before the game’s first media timeout and finished a rebound shy of a double-double.

There is only one Quakeaway that merits mentioning after Tuesday’s humiliation:

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How are the Ivy non-grad transfers doing?

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With the season two weeks old, here’s a first check on the 2023-24 Ivy stars who transferred prior to their graduation. This year, the student-athletes are all from the men’s side, but growing amounts of NIL money, more relaxed transfer rules and the lack of scholarships in the Ancient Eight should eventually (sadly) expand this list to the women’s division in the near future.

Over the opening few weeks, Kalu Anya, Malik Mack and Danny Wolf have continued their strong play from last year, while Chisom Okpara and Tyler Perkins are seeing reduced roles with their new teams.

We’ll take another look in a few weeks to see how everyone’s doing:

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Q&A with Penn men’s basketball coach Steve Donahue, part 2

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(Steve Donahue X page)

Media expectations for Penn basketball are the lowest they’ve been since coach Steve Donahue’s first season on campus in 2015. The Quakers were tabbed to finish seventh in the Ivy League, ahead of only Dartmouth. 

Predictive analytics websites have a slightly rosier outlook and project Penn to be in the mix for a third or fourth-place finish, which would be good enough to earn a trip to Ivy Madness in Providence.

With the season just three weeks away, Ivy Hoops Online spoke with Donahue to take a deep dive into how the Quakers will operate with seven new players on the roster.

Both questions and answers have been edited for clarity and length:

Check out part 1 of the conversation here. 

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Princeton men picked as preseason Ivy favorites in media poll

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Princeton, last year’s undisputed regular season champions, were picked to take home the 2025 Ivy title in the preseason media poll released on Tuesday.

Led by junior forward Caden Pierce, the 2024 Player of the Year, and first team All-Ivy junior guard Xaivian Lee, Mitch Henderson’s Tigers picked up 15 of 16 first place votes and 127 of a maximum 128 points.

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Five things I think I think about Penn men’s basketball, post-Ethan Roberts commitment

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The great Peter King, dean of football writers in America, retired earlier this year. I would put King — the longtime Sports Illustrated columnist and reporter — right up there with Lawrence Taylor, my father and Steve Sabol among the people who helped spark my lifelong love affair (obsession?) with sports.

In honor of King, I have a few more thoughts than usual on Penn’s position in the Ivy League landscape — and college basketball at large — after it picked up a high-upside transfer in the form of ex-Drake guard Ethan Roberts, a sophomore, last week.

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Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball adding Mercer transfer Michael Zanoni

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Michael Zanoni (Mercer Athletics)

Penn made its first transfer portal addition of the 2024 offseason when ex-Mercer guard Michael Zanoni revealed Monday that he had committed to the Quakers.

Zanoni, a sophomore, missed most of the 2023-24 season with a fractured foot and received a medical redshirt. He entered the portal with three years of eligibility remaining. In his 2022-23 freshman campaign, Zanoni appeared in all 33 of the Bears’ games, making 13 starts. He shot 35.6% from deep for the season on 104 attempts, averaging 6.2 points per game.

There’s a lot to like about Zanoni’s game and the broader implications of his decision to come to Penn, such as how …

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