Head Coach David McLaughlin and the Dartmouth men’s basketball program have announced the addition of Ryan Kapustka as the Director of Program Development and Basketball Operations to round out their coaching staff for the 2024-25 campaign.
“I am thrilled with the addition of Ryan to our staff. He has extensive experience that will add extreme value to many aspects of our program. He is a student of the game, values relationships, is selfless, and no job is to big or small for him to attack. He is the final piece of what I believe is an extremely strong and talented staff!” said McLaughlin.
Before Dartmouth, Kapustka was the Director of Scouting and Assistant Coach at the University of Illinois-Chicago. He was the co-recruiting coordinator along with being heavily involved in on court player development and leading all video and scouting aspects of the program. He also served as the assistant offensive coordinator where he was instrumental in the Flames offense being 62nd in the nation in 3FG%, 4th in the conference in 3FG made and 5th in the conference in assists. Kapustka played a key role in player development as the Flames set school records in GPA as well as Toby Okani earning 1st team All-Defense and Filip Skobalj earning 1st team Scholar-Athlete.
Kapustka started with UIC as the team’s Director of Basketball Operations. In that role, he was in charge of travel logistics, budget, gear, scheduling future opponents, camp director, official visit logistics and was the liaison to all departments within the athletic department. He once again played a big role in player development which led Jace Carter to being named second-team all-MVC and Filip Skobalj 1st team Scholar-Athlete. Kapustka served as the assistant offensive coordinator where the Flames were nationally ranked 47th in three-pointers attempted and 77th in tempo.
Kapustka joined the Flames after spending the prior four years with Rice University’s men’s basketball program. After serving as a graduate manager for the Owls his first two seasons, Kapustka was elevated to the program’s Director of Operations for his final two years in Houston.
In his final year the Owls went 16-17 including a CBI postseason berth which was the first postseason appearance since 2016-2017. Over his tenure, the Owls won 15 or more games in three straight seasons which is only the third time the program has done so in the last 75 years. The Owls also won conference tournament games in back-to-back seasons, the first time since 2005. As assistant offensive coordinator, the Owls had one of the top offenses in C-USA. In his final season the Owls were first or second in the conference in the following offensive categories: assist percentage, total assists, assists per game, three-pointers made, three-pointers per game, three-pointers attempted, and effective field goal percentage.
In his role with Rice, Kapustka oversaw day-to-day scheduling, coordinating travel logistics and official visit procedures, serving as the liaison to compliance, facilities and other athletic programs. Additionally, Kapustka managed the budget and student-manager program while also overseeing the team’s student-athlete development. Under his watch, the Owls posted a program record GPA during the 2021-22 season.
During his two seasons as a graduate manager for Rice, Kapustka helped prepare scouting reports for the coaching staff and provided daily individual workouts for the team. He also assisted the Director of Operations in completing expense reports, team budgets, travel logistics, equipment organization, game day operations and scheduling for future seasons.
Kapustka earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan in 2018 in sport management. At Michigan, he served as a head manager under Coach John Beilein for 4 years, where they won back-to-back Big Ten Tournament titles in 2017 and 2018 along with a national championship appearance in 2018 and setting a program record 33 wins.
A native of Grand Rapids, Mich., Kapustka and his wife, Maggie, have a daughter, Kaia.
Kapustka hired as Director of Program Development & Basketball Operations at Dartmouth
