Other Ivy Coaching News

Steve Bilsky might be in the "final stages" of the search for Penn's next John R. Rockwell Head Coach of Men's Basketball, but there's some other coaching news out there related to the Ivy League.

Yesterday, Iowa announced that Fran McCaffery, formerly the head coach at Siena, would be the Hawkeyes' new coach. McCaffery played for Penn from 1979-82 and had been rumored as a theoretical candidate for the Penn job. However, in my opinion, there was very little chance McCaffery would take the Penn job since it seems to be a step down from a scholarship-giving gig (though Albany isn't exactly Philadelphia).

With an opening at an upstate New York school that does give scholarships, it would seem logical that a coach currently at an upstate New York that doesn't give scholarships would consider moving three hours east on interstate 88. Cornell coach Steve Donahue is rumored to be on the list of candidates for the St. John's job, though it appears former UCLA coach Steve Lavin has the inside track there. Additionally, the Cornell Basketball Blog claims that Donahue is unlikely to take a mid-major job that didn't involve a move to the Philadelphia area.

More looks at Ivy coaches after the jump.

Still with me? If you are, another potential St. John's interviewee could be current Harvard coach Tommy Amaker. However, Amaker told the Crimson that "I’m not looking for anything. We’re completely happy with what we’re doing here and where we are—and we’re hopeful that the powers that be are happy with me.”

There's no reason to assuming he's lying . His wife also works at a Harvard-affiliated hospital, and in a 2001 article in the Michigan Daily, Amaker issued the following quote: “Any decision made in the Amaker household is a joint decision, and I'm not the coach of that team.”

But a word of caution about anything any coach says about leaving or not leaving his current job. While doing some research into the last search for a Penn coach, I came across this gem reported by former DP Executive Editor and sports writer David Burrick:

"Brown coach Glen Miller, considered to be another of the leading candidates for the Penn job, also publicly stated his desire to keep his job this weekend.
He told his hometown paper, The Day of New London, Conn., that he plans on staying at Brown and working out a contract extension.

Miller said he is not a formal candidate for the Penn job and does not plan on interviewing with Bilsky."

(Speaking of Glen Miller: it's old news, but here is a profile on Miller post-Penn done by the same newspaper that quoted him as saying he'd stay at Brown.)

TIowa