Penn basketball may be losing assistant coach Dan Leibovitz
Penn men's basketball assistant coach Dan Lebovitz has left the program to join the NBA's Charlotte Bobcats.
Penn basketball may be losing assistant coach Dan Leibovitz
Jonathan Tannenwald, Philly.com
Penn men's basketball assistant coach Dan Leibovitz may be leaving the program to join the NBA's Charlotte Bobcats.
CBS Sports' Jeff Goodman reported that Leibovitz is being hired as the Bobcats' player development coach. Leibovitz and Bobcats coach Mike Dunlap, a former assistant at St. John's, are longtime friends.
I was later given separate confirmation of Leibovitz's departure. But I have since been told that Leibovitz has not yet signed a contract with the Bobcats, and it may not happen until next week.
If Leibovitz's departure becomes official, it will mean that all of Penn's assistant coaching positions have turned over this summer. Mike Martin left to become the head coach at Brown, his alma mater, and volunteer assistant Rudy Wise departed the program separately.
Martin was replaced by former Penn guard Ira Bowman, who teamed up with Allen in Penn's backcourt in the late 1990s. Wise was replaced by Friends Central high school coach Jason Polykoff.
Leibovitz tweeted on June 24 that he "spoke to new Charlotte Bobcats coach Mike Dunlap today." Dunlap was hired by the Bobcats on June 20.
A Penn alum and longtime close friend of head coach Jerome Allen, Leibovitz joined his alma mater's staff at the start of Allen's first full season in 2010.
The Philadelphia-area native gave up a head coaching position at Hartford to come home, and was renowned as the tactical brains on Allen's bench.
Among the best examples of Leibovitz's influence with the whiteboard was Penn's game-winning basket at home against Columbia this past season:
Prior to his time at Hartford, Leibovitz spent a decade as the top assistant to John Chaney at Temple. Years later, that would inspire Leibovitz to start tweeting some of Chaney's best words of wisdom.
Those tweets become so popular that Leibovitz started a separate Twitter feed in Chaney's honor.
Alas, that may be coming to an end now.
"Goodbye Twitter," Leibovitz tweeted from his personal ccount Wednesday afternoon.
This is a problem for Penn B- ball. It is pretty late to find a quality replacement, and it was my sense that Jerome relied on Liebovitz a good deal for Xs and Os.— willll- Time for Penn to start a fast break offense.— Tyrone Biggums
Reach Jonathan at jtannenwald@phillynews.com or 215-854-2330.
