Mount St. Mary’s announced Saturday that it has hired former assistant coach Donny Lind as coach of its men’s basketball program.
Lind, who will be introduced Tuesday at 2:30 p.m. inside Knott Arena, has been an assistant coach at UNC Greensboro since 2021. He becomes the school’s 23rd coach and succeeds Dan Engelstad, who resigned April 10 and accepted an assistant coaching position at Syracuse.
“My family and I are so excited to return to Mount St. Mary’s as the head coach,” Lind said in a written statement distributed by the university. “I truly appreciate President [Timothy] Trainor, President-elect [Gerard] Joyce, and Athletic Director Brad Davis for entrusting me to lead this program. To have the opportunity to build upon the rich basketball tradition that Coach [Jim] Phelan started and has continued throughout the years is a responsibility I don’t take lightly. I’m looking forward to honoring that legacy while pushing the Mount to even greater heights.”
Lind, a Loyola Maryland graduate who was a student manager and video coordinator for the basketball team under former coach Jimmy Patsos and earned a bachelor’s in economics in 2010, had been an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator for the Mountaineers from 2013 to 2016 under former coach Jamion Christian. Lind contributed to the team’s run to the Northeast Conference title in 2014, coordinated the “Mayhem” full-court defense and was named in April 2016 to the National Association of Basketball Coaches Under Armour 30-under-30 list of the top young assistant coaches in the country.
“We are excited to welcome Donny Lind back to Mount St. Mary’s,” Trainor said in the school’s release. “During his time as an assistant coach here, Donny oversaw the famous Mount Mayhem full-court pressure defense. I am confident that he will take the Mount to higher levels of success in men’s basketball. The Mount community looks forward to the arrival of Donny, his wife Ciara, and their two children on Mary’s Mountain.”
Added Davis: “From our first conversation, Donny’s vision for the Mount, combined with his creative coaching skillset and incredible recruiting reputation stood out to me. I am thrilled to welcome Donny back to the Mount and am excited to partner with him to take our men’s basketball program to the next level.”
After his time with the Mountaineers, Lind served on coaching staffs at both Radford (2017-20) and UNC Greensboro (2021-24) under coach Mike Jones. The Highlanders captured back-to-back Big South regular-season titles in 2018-19 and 2019-20, and the 2017-18 squad won the Big South Tournament crown and defeated LIU Brooklyn in an NCAA First Four matchup for the program’s first NCAA Tournament victory.
Last winter, the Spartans grabbed the No. 2 seed in the Southern Conference Tournament after going 21-11 overall before getting upset by No. 7 seed ETSU in a first-round game. UNC Greensboro finished the season ranked fourth at the NCAA Division I level in 3-point percentage (.397) and converting more than 10 shots per game behind the arc.
“The Mount is getting a high-quality person and a high-quality coach and mentor, who cares deeply about the school and surrounding community,” Jones said. “His intelligence, work ethic, and character will help make the program one of the best in the MAAC and on the East Coast. He is a proven program builder and winner who has his imprint all over our program here. We can’t wait to see the great things he will do with this opportunity. I’m so proud of him and happy for him, Ciara, Magnolia, and Silas. Our loss is the Mount’s gain.”
Lind replaces Engelstad, who guided the Mountaineers to a 72-109 overall record and a 48-60 mark in the Northeast Conference from 2018 to 2022 and the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference from 2022 to 2024. Engelstad’s 72 victories rank as the fifth-most in school history.
In 2020-21, Mount St. Mary’s captured the program’s sixth Northeast Conference Tournament crown and first since that 2016-17 season despite a coronavirus pandemic that had gripped the nation. That team fell to Texas Southern, 60-52, in a First Four game of the NCAA Tournament.
