Duane Simpkins, Donny Lind And Ryan Odom Talk March Madness

Duane Simpkins, Donny Lind and Ryan Odom joined Glenn Clark Radio ahead of the NCAA Tournament. Here’s what they had to say.

American University won the Patriot League and earned an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2013-14. The Eagles will take on Mount St. Mary’s as part of the First Four on March 19 at 6:40 p.m.

Second-year coach Duane Simpkins played under Gary Williams at Maryland, averaging 9.4 points and 4.1 assists for the Terps from 1992-1996. He has been coachiang since 1999 but never for his alma mater. However, Mark Turgeon — who turned him down multiple times — helped him take American to the next level.

Simpkins: I tried to get the job as the assistant coach at Maryland three different times and I struck out every single time, but I swallowed my pride this summer because I realized our defense needed to be much, much better and I just reached out to different coaches that I knew were very good defensive coaches. Lo and behold Turge was like, “Hey man, I’m not doing anything. I would love to be a consultant for you.”

He’s been a consultant for us all year. He’s come to practice. He’s sat in on staff meetings. He’s sat in on film-watching by our team. He’s come to numerous games. If he’s not there, he watches the games on film. [After the] game, whether it be the next night or the next morning, he’s got a little small report for me on things he thought we did well, things we need to improve on and certain suggestions of, “You might want to look at playing some zone here. Hey, you probably should’ve called a timeout there.”

I value that. My wife, she thought I was crazy at the time. Obviously, she was pissed I never got the job. But man, you’ve got to put that aside. You want to try to win ballgames. You want to try to get information from as many quality coaches as you possibly can. Shoutout to Coach Turgeon with that.

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Mount St. Mary’s won the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference for the first time since joining the conference ahead of the 2022-23 season. The automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament marked the Mountaineers’ first since 2020-21. It comes in the program’s first year under Donny Lind, who took over after Dan Engelstad left to become an assistant coach at Syracuse.

Lind launched his coaching career as a student manager at Loyola under Jimmy Patsos, then got his first job as an assistant coach at the Mount (2013-2016). This trip to the NCAA Tournament marks a full-circle moment for Lind.

Lind: It gives me chills down my spine. The Mount is a special place. People don’t all know and realize just how much basketball means to the Mount St. Mary’s community — the community on campus but also the community up in Emmitsburg and the surrounding area. Basketball is really the fabric of what they’ve done. You can thank [program legend Jim Phelan] and everyone since him for that.

To see their passion, I was reminded of it the day I stepped back on campus — just how much people care. To be able to have these guys perform at this level and win and just see the outpouring of support all year long but especially after we win a championship, it’s unbelievable. We had 1,500 people make the drive to Atlantic City to come watch us play in the championship game, buses of students. It’s a special place to be a basketball player and be a basketball coach. To be able to deliver for those people is just awesome. It’s a huge part of what we do.

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VCU won the Atlantic 10 for the second time in three years, this time under former UMBC head coach Ryan Odom. It is the Rams’ 14th trip to the NCAA Tournament since 2003-04, covering six different coaches. Odom has now led three different schools — UMBC, Utah State and VCU — to the Big Dance.

Odom’s name has been rumored for current openings at Villanova and Virginia as the Rams get ready to take on BYU in Denver on March 20 at 4:05 p.m.

Odom: These guys are trying to do something special. We’re all trying to do something special, so our total focus is on what’s right in front of us right now. We know we have a big challenge against BYU. We’re in this moment right now. Why would we be thinking about anything else other than this moment that we’re in together? This team has been together since, call it May last year, or late March when we lost our last game out in Utah? We’ve added new players and we’ve had this journey together. Every team has one life to live. We say that every year. You have one life to live. Let’s make the most of it. We’re going to do that here at VCU as long we possibly can because this team is so fun. They really are.

For more from Simpkins, listen to the full interview here;

For more from Lind, listen to the full interview here;

For more from Odom, listen to the full interview here:

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Photo Credit: Courtesy of American University Athletics