Fran McCaffery can’t fix Penn just with coaching and ‘White Magic’ fame. He needs the school’s help.

As Fran McCaffery walked onto the Palestra floor Monday morning, it was easy to get wrapped up in nostalgia.

The pieces were all there: former Penn and La Salle College High teammates, his coach Bob Weinhauer, and his longtime friend Fran Dunphy. One side of the program at McCaffery’s official welcome listed his feats as a player and coach, and his old “White Magic” nickname had a prominent place.

But Penn athletic director Alanna Wren, an alumna herself, knew better. She was there to address things as they are, not how they were, and give McCaffery the keys to drive forward.

“Just so all of you know, and I hope that you didn’t doubt it, but this is a university that’s committed to success in this program,” Wren said in her introductory remarks on stage, before the formal questions in a news conference and the tougher ones that came afterward.

The former lacrosse player nailed her shot. Yes, there are doubts, and she knows it. Penn’s most famous team has won just two Ivy League titles across three coaches since Dunphy’s departure 19 years ago, and finished seventh the last two seasons.

Meanwhile, Cornell reached the Sweet 16 in 2010 (with Steve Donahue in charge), and Princeton did so in 2023. Harvard won first-round games in 2013 and ‘14, and Yale won in 2016 and ‘24.

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“I just think Penn is an institution, particularly our basketball program, that’s positioned for success every year — and seventh place isn’t acceptable,” Wren told The Inquirer. “And I think even, sadly, the course of the last two decades [isn’t] everything I would hope. … I just believe we have the institutional strengths and attributes to be a contender every year, and that’s my expectation. I won’t be shy about it.”

Why hasn’t Penn kept pace? One of the biggest reasons became the talk of the crowd Monday once the microphones were off.

Winning in the Ivy League isn’t just about coaching acumen or pure talent. It’s about the admissions department, and in Penn’s case, the financial aid office.

No one’s willing to say it publicly, but a lot of people have said it quietly, and these days it has gotten louder. For years, Donahue and women’s team coach Mike McLaughlin have found recruits who want to go to Penn, and are clearly qualified athletically and academically, but whose families don’t have the money to pay the full tuition.

When they go to negotiate over financial aid, they show what they can pay, get an offer in return, and too often are faced with a gap that can’t be bridged. So those players end up elsewhere: Northwestern, Stanford, the Patriot League, the Big East, and of course other Ivies.

Sure, athletic scholarships or a name, image, and likeness collective would fix that. But athletic scholarships aren’t allowed in the Ivy League, and at least for now there’s no collective. However, they aren’t necessary for this point. A more flexible financial aid negotiation is.

Wren took the question, and gave an encouraging answer.

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“This institution has, in my mind, stepped up to the plate,” she said. “Personally, I feel they’ve always been supportive. But in this moment of transition, they understand that it takes a village, and everybody needs to feel confident that they’re ready to move this program forward.”

As McCaffery made the rounds of well-wishers, one walked across the floor and produced the day’s signature moment. Penn president J. Larry Jameson shook hands with McCaffery, and spent a few minutes chatting.

What they said was out of earshot, but the image said plenty. It recalled the moment that started the Ivy League’s modern basketball era, Harvard’s hiring of Tommy Amaker in 2007. The first thing he did at his introduction was thank admissions department staff in attendance. The staffers returned the favor by accepting his marquee recruits, and he’s kept thanking them ever since.

At first, the rest of the Ivy League grumbled. But ultimately, instead of getting mad, it got even. Yale has better players, Princeton has better players, and these days Cornell and Brown do, too. Even Dartmouth does, leading to a rare third-place finish this season.

Jameson has worked at Penn in various roles since 2011, and has spent plenty of time at the Palestra. So he knows all this.

“I think sports is such an important part of the spirit of the university, and it’s one of the things that draws everybody together around a common purpose,” Jameson told The Inquirer, a point that covers not just wins and losses but the lowly crowds in recent years.

He was clear that it’s not the president’s place to get involved in admissions matters. But he pointed to the university’s recent raising of the family income floor for grants instead of loans. It’s now $200,000 instead of $140,000, and the value of a family home no longer counts as a financial asset.

And he knew to put that in the day’s context.

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“We also took a lot of red tape out of the process, to make it simpler and streamlined,” Jameson said. “Broadly, we’re trying to open the doors of access and opportunity to everyone. First-generation students, middle income, and certainly student-athletes.”

With all that said, now we can talk about feelings. Of course this is a dream hire for Penn. For all the alums who’ve been successful coaches — Matt Langel at Colgate, Andy Toole at Robert Morris, David Klatsky at Division III NYU, Ira Bowman as an assistant at Auburn — none is at McCaffery’s level.

Yet often over the years, and for as many people as McCaffery still knows in town, it was never really clear if he wanted this job. He revealed Monday that he did, and quite deeply. After Iowa fired him, he let Penn know he was interested, and Wren moved quickly from there.

“When it’s not open, you don’t think about that aspect — too much respect for the coaches that coached here,” McCaffery said. “But when it’s open, then you say, wait a minute, it’s been one of the most impactful experiences of my life. And how great would it be to go back home and be the coach at the place that I love, the place that I grew up idolizing?”

While Iowa is his resumé’s most prestigious line, Siena might be the most informative. The Saints won NCAA Tournament games in 2008 and 2009, the first as a No. 13 seed over Vanderbilt and the second as a No. 9 seed over Ohio State.

The latter game remains a March classic, capped by Ronald Moore’s game-winning three-pointer in double overtime. You might remember it, and Bill Raftery’s famed reaction: “Onions — double order!”

But do you remember where Moore is from? Plymouth Whitemarsh High. And after a long playing career in Europe, he’s coming home. A source who knows confirmed reports that he’ll be one of McCaffery’s assistants. Tristan Spurlock is moving from Iowa’s staff to be the top lieutenant, and George School boys’ coach Ben Luber will become No. 2.

That’s another sign of Penn embracing the present. Spurlock brings Big Ten chops and is from the D.C. suburbs, an area rich with players talented and smart enough to be Ivy Leaguers. Luber knows the kind too, coming from one of this region’s top prep schools.

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“You compare the Ivy League to a number of high mid-major conferences, and it compares favorably, with the caliber of student-athlete and what they’ve accomplished,” McCaffery said. “I think that’s what we aspire to, to have players of that caliber, and I don’t see a reason why we can’t.”

Unfortunately, other people do see reasons, ones that aren’t up to him to fix. But if the right people do so, the path is there to bring the magic back.