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The Basketball Podcast: EP372 with Donny Lind on Exceeding Expectations
In this week’s coaching conversation, Mount St Mary’s head coach Donny Lind joins the Basketball Podcast to share insights on exceeding expectations.
Donny Lind just completed his first season as the Head Men’s Basketball Coach at Mount St. Mary’s University. In his debut season (2024-2025), Lind orchestrated a remarkable turnaround for the Mountaineers. Picked 11th out of 13 teams in the MAAC preseason poll, Lind guided the team to a 23-13 overall record and a 12-8 mark in conference play, finishing tied for fourth in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.
The season was highlighted by a run through the MAAC Tournament, where the Mountaineers secured victories over Marist, Merrimack, and ultimately Iona in the championship game. This MAAC Tournament title marked the university’s first championship in any sport since becoming a full MAAC member and earned them an automatic bid to the 2025 NCAA Tournament.
In the NCAA Tournament, the #16-seeded Mountaineers achieved the program’s third-ever NCAA Tournament win with an 83-72 First Four victory over #16 seed American. Their inspiring tournament journey concluded in the First Round against #1 seed Duke.
Donny Lind’s impressive first year at the helm has garnered him recognition as a finalist for the Joe B. Hall Award, which honors the top first-time head coach in Division I college basketball. The team’s 23 wins represent the highest win total for the program as a Division I institution and the most wins in a season for Mount St. Mary’s since the 1986-87 season. Notably, his First Four victory also gave him the most wins for a first-year head coach in the Mount’s history, surpassing the legendary Jim Phelan’s first-year record.
Before taking the head coaching position at Mount St. Mary’s, Lind built a strong foundation as an assistant coach at several programs:
- VCU (Video Coordinator, 2010-2013): Donny Lind began his post-graduate career at VCU, contributing through film analysis, analytics, and assisting with player development under Shaka Smart.
- Mount St. Mary’s (Assistant Coach, 2013-2016): In his first stint at Mount St. Mary’s, Lind served as the recruiting coordinator and helped assemble what is considered the winningest class in school history. The team won the NEC Tournament and reached the NCAA Tournament during his time. The Mountaineers consistently led the NEC in key offensive categories during his tenure.
- Radford University (Assistant Coach, 2016-2021): Working under Mike Jones, Lind was part of a staff that led Radford to back-to-back Big South regular-season titles (2018-19, 2019-20) and the 2017-18 Big South Tournament title, resulting in the program’s first NCAA Tournament win in the First Four. He was recognized as a Top 50 Impactful Low Major Coach in Division I.
- UNC Greensboro (Assistant Coach, 2021-2024): Lind continued his successful assistant coaching career at UNC Greensboro, again under Mike Jones. The Spartans earned a #2 seed in the SoCon during his tenure.
Donny Lind’s return to Mount St. Mary’s has already proven to be a significant success, marked by a conference championship and an NCAA Tournament victory in his very first season as a head coach. His ability to connect with players and implement an effective coaching strategy has clearly resonated with the team, setting a promising trajectory for the program’s future.
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Donny Lind Quotes:
“I really wanted to be a good offensive coach and have a good offensive team, but I’d spent eight years learning how to be a really good defensive coach. And so, my whole goal offensively was to play as fast as we could without turning the ball over at an astronomical rate . . the biggest shift right was we finally got to a point where we could play at a pace that was uncomfortable to our opponents, but comfortable for us.”
“I don’t want to be a coach who stands over there and . . calling every play and getting guys exactly where they need to be. I’d much rather they have some concepts and ideas and spacing to play out of and then let their talent shine depending on who they are. I think it makes us really unpredictable.”
“I would never have thought that they would have been able to play-make for each other. But as the year goes on and you let them play and you let them experiment . . [they develop] some of the skills that they’ve had and haven’t been able to use, or they develop new skills over the course of the year that then are able to come out in the game.”
“I’ve always believed that our players are better than maybe we give them credit for. And if we would just let them make mistakes and not be frustrated with them and not get so down on them when they make those mistakes, some greatness will be able to come out.”
“I didn’t want to show negative emotion when guys made mistakes in games and in practice. I really wanted to coach them on the things that they need to improve without showing negative emotion because I think guys will just forget for we’ll just quit on a skill or on an idea because of a really bad negative feedback.”
“Our offense requires our bigs to move a lot. And bigs don’t necessarily love to do that, but I try to remind our guys, ‘You might not like it, but the guy guarding you hates it, how much we’re having you move.’ If we can get you to be where you’re supposed to be, when you’re supposed to be there, your man will be late and you’ll have opportunities.”
“Are you in the acceptable range of where you’re supposed to be when the ball is where it is? We tell our guys all the time, ‘The ball tells you where you’re supposed to be. You have to watch the ball.’”
“We try to watch five to seven clips a day offensively with the team, and then guys will come in individually. Every day a portion of those five to seven are of good spacing and bad spacing. And why did the good spacing work and why did bad spacing not work? And can you see that? If we fix this, you know who’s going to be open, right?”
“It changes how much you can help and recover because you know that some coaches are getting mad if the guy makes the three. I’m going to get mad if the guy gets by and gets to the rim and smacks the backboard for a layup. A lot of our growth and success throughout the year came as we kind of dialed back some of that full court pressure and settled in to our half court shell.”
“My job is to make sure that our team is confident, poised, and ready for a game. So, I spend the majority of my time on us. I’m fortunate. I have a great staff. We break it up football style. We have an offensive coordinator, a defensive coordinator. We have one guy who does our special teams, our press, our basic out of bounds stuff, and one guy who does personnel for our opponents.”
“Rule number one is stay between your man and the basket. Rule number two is pressure the ball as much as you can without violating rule number one. Right? And so rule number two takes a lot of self-awareness of who you are and who the guy is you’re standing across from.”
“People might be surprised how much of the film session comes down to, ‘Hey, rule number one. Hey, rule number two. Why are you so far back? Rule number two.’ If you can solve those things, you don’t get beat off the bounce. And now you don’t break the shell of your defense and you force teams to take tough shots.”
“We spend a lot of time trying to foster relationships. Simple things like when we go out to eat, the guys have to put their phones in a box and they have to talk to each other at the table . . it started out as kind of get-to-know-you stuff and evolved into things our team needed later in the year, conversations we needed to have. But I don’t think you’d have those conversations later in the year if you don’t do the work early to build trust and get to know each other.”
“I want to recruit guys that want to develop. If you don’t have a natural drive to get better, you’re not going to be successful here because development is going to be asked of you. And again, I think you can’t have a lot of development if you don’t have great relationships.”
“It doesn’t mean we don’t work hard. It doesn’t mean we don’t have high standards. It’s just that we’re going to have a ton of fun through all those things.”
Donny Lind Breakdown:
Donny Lind Selected Links from the Podcast:
Donny Lind
Mike Jones
Ryan Pannone
Dave Matturro
Josh Merkel
Shaka Smart
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