Mount St. Mary’s introduces Southern Vermont’s Dan Engelstad as head coach

Mount St. Mary’s has hired Southern Vermont’s Dan Engelstad as its next head coach, the school announced on Wednesday. He was introduced Thursday morning in a press conference.

Engelstad will replace Jamion Christian, who took The Mount to two NCAA Tournaments during his six-year tenure before taking the Siena job a week ago.

“We are elated to name Dan Engelstad as the next head men’s basketball coach at Mount St. Mary’s University,” athletic directory Lynne Robinson said in a statement. “Dan’s passion for the development of student-athletes, his positive and high-energy work ethic, along with his successful coaching experience, perfectly position him to guide our men’s basketball program. I am confident that our men’s basketball program will continue to thrive under Dan’s leadership.”

Engelstad was an assistant coach at Mount St. Mary’s from 2007-10 and was on the sideline for the Mountaineers’ 2008 NCAA Tournament appearance. They beat Coppin State in the play-in game that year before falling to North Carolina in the First Round.

From Emmitsburg, Engelstad followed then-head-coach Milan Brown to Holy Cross and stayed on the Crusaders’ bench until 2013 when he got the Southern Vermont job. As a head coach at the Division III level, Engelstad led his team to an NCAA Tournament appearance in 2016 and was named New England Collegiate Conference coach of the year that season.

Southern Vermont is coming off a 22-6 season that included a 12-2 conference record and another trip to the NCAA Tournament.