Columbia University Men's Basketball

Kevin Hovde was hired as the 24th head coach of Columbia men’s basketball in March 2025. Hovde (HUV-dee) returned to the Lions after helping the University of Florida Gators win a National Championship in 2025 as an assistant coach. He served on Kyle Smith’s staff at Columbia from 2011-16. In Hovde’s first season at the helm of the Lions in 2025-26, Columbia went 16-12 and secured the program’s first winning campaign in 10 years. The Lions had the eighth-best rebounding margin in the country and ranked inside the top 35 nationally in offensive rebounds per game and rebounds per game. In 14 Ivy League games, Columbia led the conference in offensive rebounds. Eight of Columbia's wins came by 15 or more points. Hovde earned his first-career victory in his debut as head coach at New Haven on Nov. 7, 2025. On Jan. 4 in the Ivy League opener, Columbia erased a nine-point second half deficit in a 104-99 victory at Cornell. It was just the second time Columbia ever scored 100 points on Cornell and the first time Columbia scored over 100 points in an Ivy League game since Feb. 6, 1993, vs. Harvard. It also marked the first time Columbia scored over 100 points in a road Ivy League game since Feb. 19, 1972, at Harvard. On Nov. 26, the Lions scored 106 points at Fairfield, marking their first 100-point game against a Division I opponent since Nov. 15, 2010 (108 vs. Maryland Eastern Shore) and their first on the road since Dec. 8, 2009, at Wagner. Columbia shot an impressive 62.5 percent

Aliza Feuerstein began as an assistant athletic trainer at Columbia University in fall 2017. She works primarily with the Lions’ men's basketball along with ...

Chasen Hofmann joined the Columbia men’s basketball program as director of operations in April 2025. Hofmann arrives in Morningside Heights after serving as a graduate assistant with the 2025 National Champion Florida Gators. Before his time in Gainesville, he was an operations intern with Major League Soccer’s New York City Football Club. While at NYCFC, Hofmann efficiently managed and distributed credentials for MLS and MLS Next Pro matches at Yankee Stadium, Citi Field, and St. John's Belson Stadium, ensuring accurate access control and smooth operations. Hofmann served as NYU’s head student manager for its men’s basketball program from 2022-24. With NYU, he was a member of the 2023-24 UAA Championship team and part of the 2022-23 UAA Coaching Staff of the Year. Hofmann also streamlined day-to-day operations, practice, and travel logistics for a coaching staff of four and 20 student-athletes, ensuring efficient and organized team activities. Hofmann spent the summers of 2021 and 2022 as a basketball operations and Summer League intern with the Milwaukee Bucks. Hofmann received a Bachelor of Science degree from NYU in 2024.

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 do

Matt Elkin joined the Columbia men’s basketball program as an assistant coach in April 2025. He previously served as Assistant Recruiting Coordinator at Stanford in 2024-25 under former Columbia head coach Kyle Smith. Elkin helped coordinate all recruiting efforts including official and unofficial visits, off-campus recruiting activities, recruiting databases and scouting services, as well as directed all Stanford youth and elite prospect camps. During his time in Palo Alto, he also played an integral role in the development of All-ACC first team honoree Maxime Raynaud and helped the Cardinal to a 7th place finish in their inaugural season in the ACC conference as well as their first NIT appearance since 2018. Prior to Stanford, Elkin spent four seasons at Yale as Director of Basketball Operations. Responsible for all logistics of the Bulldogs’ program, Elkin was a part of three Ivy League Championship teams in 2022, 2023 and 2024, and helped Yale to the NCAA Tournament in 2022 and 2024. While in New Haven, Elkin coached multiple First Team All-Ivy League honorees including Azar Swain, Matt Knowling, Danny Wolf, as well as three-time Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year Bez Mbeng. He was a member of the 2023 Ivy League Coaching Staff of the Year under head coach James Jones and played a vital role in one of the most successful four-year stretches in Ivy League Men’s Basketball history. Concurrent with his role at Yale, Elkin has served as an assistant coach with Team USA’s

Columbia men’s basketball alumnus Nate Hickman ‘18CC joined the staff as Director of Men's Basketball Strategy in August 2025. Hickman appeared in 104 games ...

Shasha Brown joined the Columbia men’s basketball program as an assistant coach in April 2025. Brown served as the Director of Operations and Player Development for the California Men’s basketball program for two seasons, joining Mark Madsen's staff in 2023-24. He helped lead the Golden Bears through their first season as members of the Atlantic Coast Conference in his second year on Madsen's Cal staff in 2024-25. Prior to spending the 2022-23 season as an Assistant Coach on Long Island University men’s basketball staff, Brown held the titles of General Manager and Director of Basketball Operations at Vanderbilt under NBA veteran Jerry Stackhouse. In his three years on staff (2019-22) with the ‘Dores, Brown coordinated team travel, oversaw team workouts and practice schedules, opponents’ practice schedules, game day operations and team managers. He also assisted with branding and marketing efforts, on-campus recruiting and academics, in addition to developing the implementation of Vanderbilt’s Men’s basketball NIL collective. After serving as an Assistant Coach with the Westtown (Pa.) School in 2013-14, Brown was a Graduate Assistant with Virginia Commonwealth’s Men’s basketball team from 2014-16. He then served as the Director of Hoop Group Elite beginning in 2016, and in 2017, he became the Coordinator of Elite Youth Development with the NBA, where he assisted in the execution and administration of all facets of the Junior NBA Global Championship and USAB Elite Pathway. Bro

Steve Merrill joined the Columbia University Athletics Communications staff in January 2023. He is the primary communications contact for the Columbia field ...

Tommy Sheehan enters his 20th year as Columbia University's Director of Strength and Conditioning. Sheehan, who is in his second stint at Columbia, was named Director of Strength and Conditioning in 2001. In this capacity, Sheehan supervises staff in all aspects of strength and conditioning for Columbia's 31 intercollegiate teams. He has been instrumental in the six recent Ivy League championships in men's tennis and has tutored Ivy League Players of the Year in Tennis, Men's and Women's Basketball and Swimming and Diving, along with several national qualifiers in Wrestling. Sheehan first came to Columbia in fall 1990 as a graduate assistant on the football coaching staff, reuniting him with Ray Tellier, Columbia's head coach at the time. Tellier had originally recruited the Buffalo, N.Y., native when he was the head coach at the University of Rochester. Sheehan spent three years on the Columbia staff and earned a master's degree in applied physiology. After a short stint as a New York State Trooper, where he earned top gun honors for physical fitness in the academy, Sheehan returned to Columbia as an assistant strength and conditioning coach. Nationally known throughout the strength and conditioning profession, he was asked to produce an instructional DVD for the Cleveland Indians, on movement training in an off-season conditioning program. It was filmed at the Indians' Jacobs Field and distributed to the players in the Cleveland system. Sheehan is one of the finest offensiv

Yuki Miyazawa enters his third year as the Associate Director of Sports performance since joining the Columbia staff in July of 2022. Miyazawa works directly...