Lon Walter Jourdet (September 12, 1888 – August 31, 1959) was the head men's basketball coach for the University of Pennsylvania from 1914–1920 and then again from 1930–1943.
As a student athlete at the University of Pennsylvania, Jourdet played on the football and basketball teams.
Jourdent is credited with inventing an early version of the zone defense used in modern basketball.
[3] His 1919–20 team finished the season with a 21–1 record[4] and was retroactively named the national champion by the Helms Athletic Foundation and the Premo-Porretta Power Poll.
Conference tournament champion In mid-August 1959, he was admitted to the Samuel G. Dixon Tuberculosis Hospital.