Only months after losing one of the most successful players in its history, the Penn women's basketball team has lost one of the most successful coaches in its history.
Kelly Greenberg, who brought the Quakers their only two Ivy League women's basketball championships, was unveiled yesterday as the new head coach at Boston University, ending a remarkably successful five-year run in which she compiled a 84-54 record.
"Boston University is proud and excited to add Kelly Greenberg to our staff as head women's basketball coach," BU Athletic Director Mike Lynch said at a press conference yesterday morning. "She has a proven track record of success at a number of high quality institutions and clearly will help to raise the bar for our team."
Greenberg replaces Margaret McKeon, who left the Terriers on June 1 after five years at the helm there. McKeon guided BU to its first ever berth in the NCAA Tournament as part of a 70-77 career record on Commonwealth Ave.
Like Penn last season, BU fell in the first round of the 2003 tournament to the University of Connecticut.
Greenberg admitted at the press conference that "it is an emotional time for me, leaving Philadelphia and UPenn, but I am extremely excited to be at Boston University."
Greenberg is quite familiar with coaching in Massachusetts.
Her first head coaching job was with BU's city rival Northeastern University from 1989 to 1990, and prior to her appointment as Penn's head coach in 1999 Greenberg was an assistant coach at Holy Cross in Worcester.
After coming home to Philadelphia to coach the Red and Blue, Greenberg led Penn to its first winning season in eight years, then followed that up with a perfect 14-0 conference record and the 2001 Ivy League title.
That brought Penn's first ever NCAA Women's Tournament berth, and a 100-57 loss to Texas Tech in the first round. Greenberg led the team back to the post season this year, with a 11-3 record in the Ancient Eight good enough for a 15 seed and nother tournament bid.
Although Lynch said that Greenberg was the school's "top choice," the decision was not made until this past Friday, according to Penn assistant coach Joe McGeever.
The Penn team was informed of the news over the weekend, and McGeever admitted to being surprised when he found out about Greenberg's departure.
"It was a surprise that BU was contacting coach Greenberg, because we were already planning what we were doing next year," he said.
McGeever was in Portland, Ore., yesterday on a recruiting trip, and he acknowledged that the news came at a particularly bad time since this time of year is when coaches work most heavily on recruiting players.
"This is our biggest month of the year to recruit, so I've been on the road," he said.
Although the loss is a tough blow, McGeever believes Penn still has more than enough firepower to contend for a second straight Ivy League crown next year.
"The way Jen Fleischer has blossomed and the sophomore class, there's many different parts to this machine this year," he said.
McGeever would not comment on how he thinks a new coach would be selected.
As to whether McGeever would pursue the position himself, he declined formal comment.
To be sure, it will take time.
"It would be very hard to do something very quickly, but I am sure that it will be done at a pace that Mr. Bilsky is very comfortable with."
If only Kelly Greenberg would have afforded him that same luxury.
