City of Basketball Love

By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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(Ed. Note: This article is part of our 2025-26 season coverage, which will run for the six weeks preceding the first official games of the year on Nov. 4. To access all of our high school and college preview content for this season, click here.)

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In the span of just a few weeks, Ethan Roberts’ situation went from a dream, to a nightmare, and back to a dream. 

The Penn senior was on his third college when he got to University City last year, happy to finally have some stability after starting his college career at West Point and then transferring to Drake, where he missed the 2023-24 season due to injury. After a big first year at Penn, he was looking forward to helping the Quakers engineer a bounce-back season in his second and final campaign this winter. 

Then Penn fired head coach Steve Donahue in March. Roberts knew he was going to stick it out for his senior year no matter what, but they were difficult circumstances nonetheless. 

“It hurt, because I loved Coach Donahue, he’s the one who got me here,” he told CoBL. “We have a great relationship as well, so I hated that for him, and it stung for me, because I have [to play for] four coaches in four years,”

When he found out who Penn had hired to replace Donahue, however, Roberts couldn’t have been much happier. A native of Arlington Heights (Ill.), a suburb of Chicago, he was told as a teenager that there was one college program that exactly fit his game.

“When I was getting recruited, and you’re looking at where you want to play and what systems might fit you, everybody was like ‘you’ve got to play for Fran McCaffery, it’ll fit you really well.’”

Roberts agreed. Problem was, at the time, he was a small-college recruit. He ended up committing to West Point only by going to the military’s prep school first. 

Four years later, he’s getting that chance to suit up for McCaffery. It might not have been the circumstances he planned for, but they’re not ones he’s going to complain about, either.

“I love Penn so much, so getting another year back here is a dream of mine, honestly. I can’t really put into words how much this place means to me,” Roberts said. “Having this mix now where I’ve got my dream coach and my dream school, it’s a blessing. I’m grateful for every day here.”

McCaffery takes control at his alma mater with plans to reinvigorate a program that’s won just one Ivy League championship in 17 years. The La Salle College HS alum (1977) began his college career at Wake Forest but transferred to Penn, playing three seasons under Bob Weinhauer and making two NCAA Tournament appearances in that span. He spent the 1982-83 season, his first out of college, as an assistant with the Quakers, then followed fellow Penn assistant Tom Schneider up to Lehigh. 

One year later, at 25 years old, McCaffery became one of the youngest Division I coaches in history when he took over the Mountain Hawks. Three seasons at Lehigh culminated in a Patriot League championship and NCAA Tournament appearance in 1988, and a spot on Digger Phelps’ staff at Notre Dame. 

In the time since, McCaffery has been head coach at UNC-Greensboro (1999-2005), Siena (2005-10) and Iowa (2010-25), finding success at each stop. He’s taken all four programs to the NCAA Tournament, making 12 different trips to March Madness, with a career 548-384 (.588) record as he enters his 30th season in charge of a Division I program.

And he’s optimistic about his first team, despite the fact that Penn is coming off an 8-19 (4-10 Ivy League) season.

“What I see with this group in particular is the ability to contend right away,” McCaffery told CoBL in a Monday phone call. “I recognize the quality of this league, top-to-bottom [...] I have tremendous respect for everybody in this league. When you take over this program, the expectation is to contend, year-in, and year-out, so that’s my expectation.”

Roberts, Penn’s leading scorer (16.8 ppg) last year, is almost certainly going to be one of the Quakers’ top contributors this year, though he’s still dealing with the effects of a shoulder injury suffered at the end of last season. Sam Brown, the team’s second-leading scorer (13.9 ppg), is now at Davidson; center Nick Spinoso (13.3 ppg, 6.7 rpg) and wing George Smith (5.3 ppg) both graduated. 

Also back from the rotation are senior Michael Zanoni (6.4 ppg), senior guard Dylan Williams (4.4 ppg), senior wing Nik Polonowski (4.3 ppg), sophomore guard AJ Levine (4.0 ppg), whom Roberts singled out as having made “great strides” this summer, sophomore forward Augie Gerhart (3.5 ppg) and a few others.

They’re joined by seven newcomers: Virginia transfer T.J. Power, a 6-9 forward and former four-star recruit; sophomore Lucas Lueth, a 6-7 forward who was previously at Kirkwood (Iowa) CC; and freshmen William Kruse (6-11 F), Payton Kamin (6-7 F), Dalton Scantlebury (6-9 F), Ryan Altman (6-6 SF) and Jay Jones (6-4 G). 

All-in-all, there are 19 bodies on the roster. It’s not tough to figure out that they can’t all play. Figuring out just who belongs in that rotation could take some time. McCafferty spoke highly of just about everybody on his roster, newcomers and returners, though he singled out Lueth as one who had particularly impressed in the preseason, and Power — who’s dealt with some injuries this offseason — seems a lock to play when healthy.

“I think when you come in new, you have to give everybody a clean slate, but at the same time, when you look at it from their perspective, if they were productive and really good players, then they should have that expectation that (there) won’t be any change,” McCaffery said. “It’s what (you’ve done) from the minute we got here, but I will say, the guys that were effective last year have been really good.”

The Quakers’ 2025-26 season opens on Nov. 7 with a home game against D-III Rowan; they won’t be challenged until two days later, at American, with Big 5 games against Donahue and St. Joe’s (Nov. 17) and at Drexel (Nov. 21). The Big 5 Classic takes place Dec. 6; Ivy League play starts January 5 at archrival Princeton.

It’ll likely take until then to figure out just how close this team could become to making McCaffery five-for-five with his program success. His players figure it’s only a matter of time.

“Penn’s going to win,” Roberts said. “At some point, Penn’s going to be really, really good with him at the helm.”