EMMITSBURG – Right along U.S. 15, the major highway that runs by this tiny, rural town in Frederick County, sits Mount St. Mary’s University, a certified, dyed-in-the-wool basketball school, despite an enrollment that barely exceeds 2,000 students.
Its men’s and women’s teams have created another milestone in its rich hoops history, as both won Northeast Conference tournaments to earn spots in their respective NCAA tournaments, a double that last occurred in 1995.
Dan Engelstad, the 36-year-old men’s head coach, got his first taste of what the sport means here as a boy, when his parents drove him 52 miles from their home in Bethesda to the basketball camp on campus run by legendary DeMatha Catholic High School coach Morgan Wootten.
The community’s love for the game was reaffirmed for Engelstad when he returned to the Mount as an assistant coach to Milan Brown in 2007 and again in 2018, as head coach.
“It’s a world-class basketball experience,” Engelstad said. “You are going to play against the nation’s best. You are going to play in front of the best crowd in the Northeast Conference by far. You are going to come to a place that historically wins championships … and they are going to take care of you for life. It’s a family.”
Both the men’s and women’s teams managed starts, stops and quirks of this pandemic-altered season. The Mount women overcame three coronavirus-related pauses over the course of the season, while the men overcame two.
Mount St. Mary’s remains the only school in NEC history to send both its men and women to the NCAA tournament in the same season since the league began a women’s tournament in 1987.
“In a year like no other, it’s just a real tribute to our coaches and our student-athletes and really the entire university,” said athletic director Lynne Robinson.
She’s the daughter of legendary Mount coach Jim Phelan, the patriarch of the men’s program and one of the winningest coaches in college basketball history with 830 victories. A parishioner of St. Joseph in Emmitsburg, Pehlan directed the Mountaineers to the NCAA Division II title in 1962.
After the men won their tournament, Engelstad took the trophy to the Phelan home.
The men (12-10 overall) will face Southwestern Athletic Conference champion Texas Southern (16-8) March 18 (5:10 p.m., TruTV) in a “First Four” game in Bloomington, Ind. The winner plays Michigan, a No. 1 seed, March 20.
The Mountaineers, who are in the NCAA tournament for the sixth time, are led by their 5-foot-8, 155-pound point guard Damian Chong Qui, who shined for McDonogh in the MIAA A Conference, where the prime competition was members of the Baltimore Catholic League.
Engelstad’s staff includes former St. Maria Goretti coach Matt Miller, credited as one of the architects of a stingy defense. Mount St. Mary’s allows 62.3 points per game, 16th among all Division I schools.
“Dan and I go way back in terms of defensive fundamentals,” Miller said in a phone interview from the team hotel in Indianapolis. “We played in the same system together at St. Mary’s College (in southern Maryland).”
The women (17-6) are in the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1995 after winning their fourth NEC title March 14 with a 70-38 victory over Wagner. Rebecca Lee, a 6-2 senior center who played for Old Mill High in Severn, was tournament MVP after collecting 18 points and 11 rebounds in the championship game.
The 15th-seed Mountaineers will face second-seeded Maryland (24-2) in a first- round game March 22 (4 p.m., ESPN) in San Antonio. It will be the first meeting between the two since December 2017, when the Terps cruised to a 97-57 victory and ran their all-time record against the Mount to 8-0. The two were scheduled to play Dec. 8, a game that was canceled by COVID-19.
“Their guards are as big as our post players,” coach Maria Marchesano said of the Terps, who won the NCAA title in 2006.
As a high school player in Indiana, Marchesano was recruited by Ball State coach, Brenda Frese, now the head coach at Maryland.
“I still have those letters from her,” said Marchesano, who wound up playing at Butler. “I am sure she doesn’t remember me because that’s been years and years ago. But, obviously, an amazing coach. I love the way she coaches. I love the style that they play. It’s going to be exciting to go against her again.”
The Terps’ rising stars include Angel Reese, a 6-3 freshman wing from St. Frances Academy.
The men’s team won the singular play-in game into the 64-team field over Coppin State in 2008 and a First Four game over New Orleans in 2017. The women’s team, meanwhile, has never won at this level.
“The NCAA tournament is a great avenue for small schools like the Mount to gain national recognition,” Marchesano said. “It allows people who might not be from this area to see what kinds of hidden gems there are all over the nation, and the Mount is one of those special gems.”
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