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Jeff GoodmanJeff Borzello 9y

Penn hires Steve Donahue

Men's College Basketball, Pennsylvania Quakers, Boston College Eagles

Steve Donahue was named coach of the Penn Quakers on Monday.

Donahue, who was an assistant coach at Penn for 10 seasons before leaving for Cornell in 2000, met with the Quakers on Monday night, sources confirmed to ESPN.com.

The school will introduce Donahue on Tuesday afternoon in a news conference, it said in a statement released Monday night.

"I am thrilled to be coming back to Penn as its head men's basketball coach," Donahue said in the statement. "Having been a part of Philadelphia and Penn basketball for the greater part of my life, I have a great passion for this city and this program.

"I spent 10 extraordinary years as an assistant here at Penn working with one of the great head coaches in all of college basketball, Fran Dunphy. That, combined with my experiences as head coach at Cornell and Boston College, have led me to this distinct opportunity to return the program that I grew up watching to national prominence. I plan to provide the energy and the enthusiasm that will put Penn basketball back atop the Ivy League."

Donahue spent four seasons at Boston College before being let go last spring. He was the coach at Cornell for 10 seasons, going to three NCAA tournaments and one Sweet 16 in his final three years with the Big Red.

He replaces Jerome Allen, who stepped down after more than five seasons in charge of the Quakers. Allen took over midway through the 2009-10 season, after Glen Miller was fired seven games into the campaign. Allen went 33-28 in his first two full seasons at the helm but struggled to a 26-61 record over the past three seasons.

Penn was 9-19 this season, finishing 4-10 in the Ivy League.

"After performing a robust and year-long assessment of the men's basketball program, we entered the search process with a strong sense of the background, skills and character traits we felt were necessary for Penn's next head coach," Penn athletic director M. Grace Calhoun said in the statement . "An impressive group of candidates were thoroughly vetted, and Steve Donahue clearly rose to the top.

"Coach Donahue is a nationally recognized coach and proven recruiter with unquestioned integrity," Calhoun added. "His deep knowledge of and appreciation for Penn basketball, the Ivy model of student-athlete development, and the Big Five were unparalleled in the search. We are confident in Coach Donahue's ability to return Penn men's basketball to prominence. We welcome Steve, his wife Pamela, and his family back to Philadelphia."

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