PHILADELPHIA — Saint Joseph’s men’s basketball coach Billy Lange announced Wednesday that he’s departing the program for a player development role with the New York Knicks. Former Penn coach Steve Donahue has been elevated to the head coaching role, the 16th in program history.
The move comes six weeks before the season is due to start and ends Lange’s six-season tenure on Hawk Hill. It installs Donahue, fired from Penn at the end of last season, right back into a head coaching job.
Penn head coach Steve Donahue reacts to a call during the first half of a Jan. 2, 2024, game against Auburn. (AP Photo/Butch Dill)
Lange was 81-104 in six seasons since being hired to replace Phil Martelli in 2019. The Hawks won 20 games each of the last two seasons, the first time that has happened at St. Joe’s since 2003-05. But it was only good enough to reach the NIT, exiting in the first round each time. Lange led St. Joe’s to wins in the first two Big 5 Classics.
“Billy and I shared a vision for how to run a program in the new world of college sports,” St. Joe’s Athletic Director Jill Bodensteiner said in a press release. “He built that infrastructure from the ground up — people, culture, facilities, student-athlete development and talent. We have all of the pieces we need to be successful as Steve Donahue leads us into our next chapter of Hawks basketball.”
St. Joe’s won two games in the Atlantic 10 tournament each of the last three years, pulling upsets in the quarterfinals the last two years. But the Hawks went no further than the semifinals, needing the automatic bid to make NCAAs. St. Joe’s hasn’t been in the NCAA Tournament since 2016.
Lange had great success on the player development side. Erik Reynolds finished as the program’s all-time leading scorer, surpassing Jameer Nelson. He’s played for Oklahoma City in the NBA Summer League. Rasheer Fleming was selected with the first pick of the second round, No. 31 overall, in the 2025 NBA Draft, his rights acquired by the Phoenix Suns. Jordan Hall played nine games with the San Antonio Spurs in 2022-23.
Lange has NBA experience as an assistant coach for the 76ers for six seasons. He was also the associate head coach at Villanova after a stint as the head man at Navy.
Donahue was hired in May as an assistant coach after 10 seasons at Penn ended with an 8-19 season in 2024-25. He led the Quakers to a 24-9 record in 2017-18, their last trip to the NCAA Tournament.
Donahue was 131-130 in nine seasons at Penn after a successful stint at Cornell (146-138 over 10 seasons) and a less illustrious four years at Boston College from 2010-14 (54-76). A Cardinal O’Hara graduate whose coaching career began at Springfield and Monsignor Bonner, Donahue has made the NCAA tournament four times.
“Coach Donahue has had an incredible impact on collegiate basketball up and down the East Coast and on the national stage,” Bodensteiner said. “He is a rare and accomplished coach who is as respected for his basketball acumen as he is for his character.”
“From the minute I arrived on Hawk Hill, I’ve been blown away by the state of the program, and I’m so thankful to Dr. McConnell, Jill and Billy for bringing me into the Hawk family. It is a program I watched closely from our great match-ups in the Big 5 and I’ve long admired St. Joe’s for its legacy, tradition and dedicated fan base,” Donahue said. “But nothing prepared me for what I saw when I joined the team. We are athletic, deep and talented; we have the people, culture and first-class facilities. We have everything we need to win.”
