Report: Dan Leibovitz coming back to Penn

Correction: Leibovitz didn't play varsity basketball at Penn. Thanks to Stu Suss for the information.

This is pretty surprising.

ESPN.com's Andy Katz is reporting that Hartford coach Dan Leibovitz has resigned that job so that he can take John Gallagher's spot on the Penn bench as an assistant to Jerome Allen.

"Leibovitz said he expects to work again at his alma mater," Katz writes.

Hartford announced the resignation this evening. He was 44-82 in four seasons with the Hawks, and his current roster includes five players from Philadelphia.

Aside from the obviously unusual move from head coach to assistant, this is even more of a shock because Leibovitz had four years left on his contract at Hartford.

Leibovitz is best known in Philadelphia as John Chaney's top assistant at Temple. He took over head coaching duties when Chaney was suspended in 2005 after the Goongate incident.

But Leibovitz got his start in the city while attending Penn from 1993 to 1996 (he transferred from Franklin & Marshall after his freshman year there). He has been close friends with Jerome Allen since when the two played together at Episcopal Academy.

There's no confirmation from Penn yet, though two sources of mine who know some of the people involved in this are pretty sure it's going to happen. I'm told that money is not an issue in this.