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Last Tuesday Mount St. Mary’s beat Bryant by 5 PTS in the NEC tourney title game to earn an automatic bid to next week’s NCAA tournament. The Mountaineers had a 3-game losing streak in mid-February but won each of their final 4 games on the road to claim the school’s 1st NCAA tourney bid since 2017. Earlier today HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to speak with Coach Dan Engelstad about coaching in the TBT and what it feels like to make the NCAA tourney.
At St. Mary’s College you served as a team captain and graduated as the school’s all-time leader with 419 career AST: what is the key to being a good leader, and what is the key to being a good PG? The key to being a good leader is being transparent/clear and sharing your vision so that people can understand it. There has to be leadership from within so that it empowers people to be the best version of themselves. As a PG you need to know the offense/defense inside and out, set the standard, and be selfless so that your teammates can see that you care about them.
After graduating you became an assistant to Coach Milan Brown at both Mt. St. Mary’s/Holy Cross: how did you like working for him, and what is the most important thing that you ever learned from him? He is still my coaching mentor. I talked with him after the title game earlier this week because he was the 1 who taught me how to build a program with a family dynamic.
In the 2008 NCAA tourney you had a 9-PT win over Coppin State in the 1st 4 and then a 39-PT loss to North Carolina: what is it like to win an NCAA tourney game, and what is it like to face Roy Williams in March? I was 22 years old at the time. I remember standing at half-court before the Carolina game. Coach Williams came over and congratulated me on a good season: I looked him right in the eye and said, “Thanks: you had a good season too”! The arena was packed with 40,000 people and the crowd did not know who to cheer for in the 1st 4: it was a win that I will always cherish.
You were named head coach at Southern Vermont in 2013 when they were coming off of a 1-24 season, but 2 years later you were a 25-win conference champion who went undefeated in conference play: how were able to turn things around so dramatically in just a couple of years? Really good players/people. We brought in some talented players who believed in our vision. We played a fun up-tempo style and winning created buy-in from our team.
In the summer of 2017 you were the coach of Armored Athlete: what was your favorite part of being in “The Basketball Tournament”? Learning. I was a D-3 head coach at the time and could not work with my guys over the summer, so to be around high-level guys and learn from them/talk to them was great because I got some instructions about how to win games. When you are in the postseason it is about survive and advance: it is important to get experience in those moments so that you can remain calm/poised during a big game.
You were hired at the Mount as head coach in 2018 and took over a squad of 8 sophomores/7 freshmen: were you surprised to have back-to-back seasons of 21+ losses with such a young roster, and could you see the light at the end of the tunnel? When you are in the middle of it there is a lot that you need to learn. The 1 thing that our staff did was to keep working/plugging away. We knew that it was a building process: it is hard to win when you are that young.
JR Damian Chong Qui has averaged 15 PPG/6 RPG/6 APG over the past 3 weeks despite playing 42 minutes/game: how has your 5’8” PG been able to play so well without ever getting a chance to rest? Before the conference tourney I told him that he would not be getting a sub. The media timeouts gave him a little more time to rest and he is as tough as they come. He is in great shape and always working on his game. He has a great motor and a huge heart so he deserved that moment.
You had to beat each of the top-2 seeds on the road to clinch the NEC tourney title on Tuesday: what did it mean to you to win a title, and can you even remember the last time you even had a home game (February 17)?! It has been a long time. It speaks to our guys: you have to be physically/mentally tough to win games on the road. There was crazy adversity but something clicked and we got hot at the right time: we have a great young core.
What is it like to be a college basketball coach during a pandemic? It is the hardest thing that I have ever experienced. There is so much uncertainty that you have to navigate through: guys are sick of us telling them to be smart but the reward was great and we got to celebrate it together. It is not easy on any of us: we try to build a family here and we are all better for having gone through it and fighting until the end.
What kind of seed do you think you deserve, and what kind of seed do you think you will get? I have not paid too much attention to it because the last few weeks have been such a whirlwind. I have heard that we will probably be in the play-in game but we are just happy to get a chance to compete. We are playing good basketball right now and do not care who we play.
