Men's Basketball
- Title:
- Director of Basketball Operations
- Email:
- mark.mcgonigal@richmond.edu
- Phone:
- 289-8392
Coaching Experience:
Assistant Coach/Director of Basketball Operations & Recruiting, University of Richmond, 2023-present
Director of Basketball Operations & Recruiting, University of Richmond, 2022-23
Director of Basketball Operations, University of Richmond, 2019-2022
Director of Program Development, University of Richmond, 2016-19
Coach, National Collegiate Scouting Association, 2012-16
Assistant Coach, Holy Spirit (N.J.) High School, 2011-12
McGonigal was promoted to Assistant Coach/Director of Basketball Operations & Recruiting in September 2023 following the NCAA's decision to allow two additional men's basketball coaches. McGonigal was originally elevated to Director of Basketball Operations on April 25, 2019 following three seasons serving as the team's Director of Program Development. In April 2022, he added Director of Recruiting to his title after assuming responsibility for managing all of Richmond basketball's recruiting operations, including arranging staff schedules during evaluation periods, directing all campus visits by recruits, and organizing and maintaining the program's internal evaluation system for high school underclassmen and players in the NCAA transfer portal.Â
In his first season as assistant coach, McGonigal and the Spiders won the Atlantic 10 regular season title, the school's first since joining the conference in 2001, and posted the program's longest win streak since 1935, winning 11 games in a row from mid-December through the end of January. Richmond finished 23-10 overall and 15-3 in A-10 play, a school record for most conference wins in a season.Â
In 2022-23, McGonigal and the Spiders posted wins over NCAA Tournament teams Drake and FDU in the regular season and defeated Massachusetts by 33 points in the Atlantic 10 Tournament, the second-largest margin of victory in the event's history.Â
In 2021-22, McGonigal helped the Spiders to a 24-13 record, an Atlantic 10 championship, and a win vs Big Ten champion Iowa in the First Round of the NCAA Tournament. It was the second A-10 title in program history, and UR's 24 wins were the fourth most ever by a Spiders team.
During the 2020-21 season, COVID-19 required changes to almost all of the program's daily operations, a process that McGonigal managed along with Athletics Department medical staff. Richmond finished the season 14-9, rising as high as 19th in the AP Top 25 poll and reaching the NIT Quarterfinals.Â
In McGonigal's first season as Director of Operations in 2019-20, the Spiders won a school-record 14 conference games and increased their total wins from 13 to 24, tied for the third-largest increase in all of Division I.Â
A Richmond alum, McGonigal ’09 came back to Richmond after working as a coach for the National Collegiate Scouting Association since 2012. 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.
Before that, McGonigal worked as a special education assistant in Galloway, N.J., where he did research on special education students and worked one-on-one with students with autism in classroom settings. He also worked as an assistant basketball coach at his varsity high school of Holy Spirit High in Absecon, N.J.
McGonigal played basketball at Richmond from 2005-09 under Chris Mooney. He played in 27 games in his career as a Spider walk-on, helping to set the foundation for UR’s NCAA tournament runs.
