Syracuse Basketball: New assistant further strengthens 'Cuse recruiting ties in DMV

Syracuse basketball head coach Adrian Autry has reportedly filled the vacancy on his coaching staff with a new assistant who has deep recruiting connections in the talent-filled Washington, D.C., market.

ESPN senior writer Pete Thamel reports that the Orange is set to hire Dan Engelstad as an assistant coach, filling the void left by the recent departure of 'Cuse associate head coach Gerry McNamara, who is the new head coach at Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference ("MAAC") member Siena.

Engelstad will come to the Hill after serving for six seasons as the head coach of Mount St. Mary's, another MAAC school that is located in Emmitsburg, Md. He hails from Bethesda, Md., and according to reports, Engelstad is a strong recruiter in the loaded DMV, which is one of the key recruiting hotbeds for the Orange.

In his half-dozen campaigns at the helm of Mount St. Mary's, Engelstad has compiled a 72–109 overall record. He guided The Mount to the NCAA Tournament in 2021.

Syracuse basketball reportedly has a new assistant who has 11 years of head coaching experience.

Besides Mount St. Mary's, Engelstad served for five terms as the head coach of Division III Southern Vermont College in Bennington, Vt., where he amassed a 104-34 overall mark, according to his bio on the Mount St. Mary's athletics department Web site.

During his tenure at Southern Vermont, he was named the New England Collegiate Conference ("NECC") coach of the year three times and won a pair of NECC titles. Engelstad was also previously an assistant at Mount St. Mary's and Holy Cross.

He played basketball at St. Mary’s College in St. Mary's City, Md., graduating in 2007 as the team's all-time leader in career assists.

Some other interesting tidbits about Engelstad. He was a head coach in The Basketball Tournament ("TBT"). He founded the Fast Break Basketball Camp in Bethesda and, in the summer of 2006, was an intern in the front office of the NBA's Washington Wizards.

On a personal level, I love this hire, because I'm from the DMV, having grown up in Maryland not far from Bethesda. Engelstad's recruiting ties in the D.C. area are fabulous, and he's also got more than a decade of head-coaching experience under his belt.

As I noted in a column on Wednesday night, Syracuse basketball coaches are expected to welcome two four-star college transfers on visits to Central New York this coming weekend. One of them is Dakota Leffew, a senior guard at Mount St. Mary's who entered the transfer portal last month.

With Engelstad apparently coming on board, Autry's staff would consist of Engelstad, assistant coach Allen Griffin and assistant coach Brenden Straughn, who joined the team in the 2023-24 stanza after most recently serving as an assistant at George Washington.

This is just my opinion, but to me, the Orange's two key recruiting areas are the Baltimore to Washington, D.C., corridor, along with New York City and the rest of the Empire State (as well as throughout the Northeast corridor).

Autry and Griffin have strong recruiting relationships in New York. Autry, Straughn and Engelstad have deep recruiting connections in the DMV. I think that Autry did quite well with this new hire. It's tough to "replace" GMac, however, Engelstad has an excellent coaching resume himself.