NEWARK — The Princeton men’s basketball team is shaking up its coaching staff. A source confirmed that assistants Brett MacConnell and Lawrence Rowley won’t return next season. Neither is having their contract renewed. The Prince first reported the departures. MacConnell has served as the asso ciate head coach since 2018 after working his way up from the Director of Basketball Operations in 2012. He even served in the head coach capacity four times and the team went 3-1 in those games. The Rutgers grad is known for having a keen eye for talent and has helped recruit high-level players like Tosan Evbuomwan, Caden Pierce and Xaivian Lee. He has interviewed for head coaching vacancies over the last few seasons. Rowley was in his third season as an assistant following a year at TCNJ as a graduate assistant. The changes come on the heels of a 19-11 campaign that was much more difficult both physically and mentally than the record suggests. With stars Xaivian Lee and Caden Pierce returning, Princeton was the heavy favorite in the Ivy League, and after an 11-4 record in non-conference play that featured nice victories over St. Joseph’s, Rutgers and Akron and a 3-0 start to Ivy play, including a pair of dramatic late wins over Dartmouth and Columbia, things appeared on track. But there were signs that a penchant for falling behind by double digits early in games wasn’t sustainable and the Tigers went 5-6 over the next 11 contests. Pierce battled gamely through injuries, but with the reigning Ivy Player of the Year at way less than 100% opponents hounded Lee and attacked Princeton’s soft inside defense. Blowout losses to Brown, Yale, Cornell and at home to Dartmouth — the Yale and Cornell defeats were both nationally televised games — put Princeton in a position were it needed a win or help on the final day of the regular season just to make the Ivy League Tournament. The Tigers got that victory convincingly to set up a semifinal against Yale, which had finished five games better than them in the regular-season standings. Princeton spotted the Bulldogs the game’s first 12 points, but battled back to take the lead late in the second half only to come up short when Lee’s 3-pointer at the buzzer clanged off the rim. “A lot of sleepless nights,” coach Mitch Henderson said near the end of the season when asked how difficult the year had been. “It’s no fun.” *** Speaking of Ivy League coaches, Penn reportedly has its man in Fran McCaffery. The former Lehigh, UNC Greensboro, Siena and Iowa coach returns home to take over at his alma mater. McCaffery spent the last 15 seasons at the helm in Iowa where he went 297-207 and with seven NCAA Tournament appearances. Penn parted ways with Steve Donahue following an 8-19 season and 4-10 Ivy record. *** There will be actual basketball played this week in New Jersey with the Prudential Center hosting the East Regional of the NCAA Tournament. Thursday’s Sweet 16 games feature No. 1 seed Duke (33-3) against No. 4 seed Arizona (24-12) and No. 6 seed BYU (26-9) against No. 2 seed Alabama (27-8).  BYU-Arizona tips off at 7:09 p.m. with Duke-Arizona to follow at approximately 9:39 p.m. Brian Anderson (play-by-play), Jim Jackson (analyst) and Allie LaForce (sideline) will call the action. *** BYU coach Kevin Young is a former 76ers assistant and head coach of the organization’s team in what is now the G League. Young was on Brett Brown’s staff from 2016-20 before moving on to the Phoenix Suns. BYU hired him off the Suns staff where he was the associated head coach. “It was the most important time of my life as a young coach,” said Young, whose daughter was born in New Jersey and his son in Delaware. “Brett Brown was by far my most influential coach that I’ve worked with and for. Brilliant guy. I don’t think he gets enough credit for how good of a coach he is and even better a CEO. I learned so much from him from a leadership standpoint. Many of the things I do now is because of things I learned from him.” Young’s time on the Sixers’ bench was during the loved-by-some-loathed-by-others Process. “That was a unique time going through that rebuild,” Young said. “I got there at the start of kind of the process or whatever, and I saw the whole thing through pretty much. The thing that maybe doesn’t get discussed enough during that era was how many really good basketball people came through there. Everyone that I was with there — there’s GMs, there’s multiple head coaches. There’s a bunch of guys who have moved up in the world on the coaching side, a couple guys that are on Boston’s bench now, have won championships, you go down the list.” *** Rutgers may have had a disappointing season, but there was still a Rutgers connection here in Newark. Alabama center Cliff Omoruyi and BYU forward Mawot Mag were both Scarlet Knights last season. Omoruyi, a 6-11 center, averages 7.9 points and 6.7 rebounds. He had 17 points in a first round win over Robert Morris and 10 in the second round triumph over Saint Mary’s. Mag, a 6-7 forward, has played the same ‘glue guy’ role he did at Rutgers. His defensive stop on the final possession against Wisconsin was the difference between the Cougars hanging on for a 91-89 victory instead of overtime. ...read more read less