We’ve reported on all of these moves over the last few weeks – they’ve now been made official. Here’s the release from Columbia announcing their new basketball staff:

Columbia men’s basketball head coach Kevin Hovde has announced the hiring of assistant coaches Mark McGonigal, Shasha Brown, and Matt Elkin to round out the staff ahead of his first season at the helm of the Lions in 2025-26.

“I’m thrilled to welcome Mark, Shasha, and Matt to the Columbia men’s basketball program,” Hovde said. “They are extremely talented coaches who will work as hard as they can to make our program successful. Most importantly, they will be tremendous mentors for our student-athletes.”

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.

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 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.

McGonigal and Hovde were teammates at Richmond from 2006-09.

Brown recently 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.

Elkin previously served as Assistant Recruiting Coordinator at Stanford in 2024-25 under former Columbia head coach Kyle Smith. Before his time at Stanford, Elkin won three straight Ivy League Championships at Yale (2022-24) and went to the NCAA Tournament twice as Director of Basketball Operations. 

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.