Mark McGonigal joined the Columbia men’s basketball program as an assistant coach in April 2025.
McGonigal recently served as an assistant coach at Cornell in 2024-25, where he helped guide the Big Red to a second-place finish in the conference and to the Ivy League Tournament Championship game. Cornell led the nation in effective field goal percentage and two-point field goal percentage. The Big Red also ranked in the top five nationally in assists per game, made field goal percentage, and made three-pointers per game.
Cornell defeated Cal on the road last season in a key non-conference victory, marking the program’s first win over an ACC opponent in 73 years.
McGonigal spent 2016-23 on the staff at his alma mater, Richmond, which included four seasons as Director of Basketball Operations. He was elevated to an on-court assistant position in 2023. In addition to operations and recruiting, he also played a pivotal role in player development.
In his first season as an assistant coach, Richmond won its first regular-season Atlantic 10 title since joining the conference in 2001 and posted its longest win streak (11 games) since 1935. The Spiders ended the year 23-10 overall and 15-3 in A-10 play, a school record for most conference wins in a season. The previous record of 14 was set in 2020, McGonigal’s first season as Director of Operations, when the program’s 24-7 campaign was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 2022 Spiders’ team won the A10 Tournament before taking down fifth-seeded Iowa in the NCAA Tournament First Round. Richmond went 147-110 with three NIT appearances (two to the quarterfinals) with McGonigal on the sidelines under his former head coach, Chris Mooney.
Before his time at Richmond, McGonigal coached for the National Collegiate Scouting Association (2012-16). While there, he worked with student-athletes to evaluate their skill level on the court and their academic profile to guide them to college opportunities that would be the right fit. He began his career as an assistant coach at Holy Spirit HS in New Jersey (2011-12) while serving as a special education assistant, where he did research on special education students and worked one-on-one with students with autism in classroom settings.
A four-year member of the basketball team at Richmond after joining the team as a walk-on, McGonigal played in 27 career games before graduating in 2009 with a degree in Political Science.
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