St. Olaf College Athletics

Dan Kosmoski is in his 32nd season as the head coach of the St. Olaf men's basketball program in 2025-26, making him the second longest-tenured coach at St. Olaf.

Since taking over the program prior to the 1994-95 season, Kosmoski has amassed 380 victories, making him the winningest coach in program history by more than 100 wins. Kosmoski has led the Oles to all four of the program's NCAA Tournament appearances, with four appearances in a five-year span from 2014-18.

Under Kosmoski, St. Olaf has qualified for the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) Playoffs 13 times, including 10 times in the tournament's last 14 seasons. The Oles have advanced to the semifinals of the MIAC Playoffs seven times in the last 11 editions of the tournament and won the six-team tournament in 2013-14 and 2015-16.

In 2013-14, St. Olaf established a school record for wins in a season, finishing 22-6 overall, and won the program’s first-ever MIAC Playoffs title with wins over Gustavus and St. Thomas to earn its first-ever berth into the NCAA Tournament. The team’s 17-3 mark in MIAC play stands as a program record for conference victories in a season. Kosmoski was named the MIAC Coach of the Year and the D3hoops.com West Region Coach of the Year at the end of the season.

The 2013-14 team’s school-record 22 wins was quickly broken by the 2014-15 team that finished 23-6 overall and 16-4 in the MIAC. After falling in the semifinals of the MIAC Playoffs, the Oles made their deepest-ever run in the NCAA Tournament by defeating Ohio Wesleyan and Defiance before bowing out to Marietta in the Sweet 16.

The next season, St. Olaf won the MIAC Playoffs for the second time in three seasons, overcoming a four-point halftime deficit to defeat St. Thomas in St. Paul to qualify for its third-straight NCAA Tournament. After the Oles came back from 10 points down in the second half to defeat No. 17 North Central (Ill.) in the opening round, St. Olaf was edged, 63-61, by No. 7 St. Norbert in the second round.

After a one-year absence, the Oles returned to the MIAC Playoffs and the NCAA Tournament in 2017-18, finishing the season 20-8 overall and 15-5 in the MIAC. Following a MIAC Playoff semifinal loss to Bethel, St. Olaf topped Sul Ross State, 88-75, in the first round of the NCAA Tournament before falling by six points to No. 6 UW-Platteville in Platteville, Wis. The 2017-18 team was named the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) Team of the Week on Feb. 6, 2018 after a 3-0 week that included a win over No. 4 Saint John’s, snapping the Johnnies’ 16-game winning streak.

Prior to coming to St. Olaf, Kosmoski was an assistant coach at the University of Minnesota for nine seasons (1985-86 - 1993-94) under Jim Dutcher, Jimmy Williams and Clem Haskins. While with the Gophers, Kosmoski was on the coaching staff of teams that made the Sweet 16 (1988-89) and Elite 8 (1989-90), helping turn around a program that lost 19 Big Ten games in a row. In 1992-93, Minnesota won the National Invitation Tournament (NIT).

Before working at the University of Minnesota, Kosmoski spent five seasons as an assistant at Golden Valley Lutheran Junior College (1978-79, 1980-84), including two years under Flip Saunders. In his five seasons on staff, the program went 116-30 and, in 1981, was the state and regional champions and participated in the national tournament.

In his playing days, Kosmoski was a standout at Owatonna High School, earning all-state honors in football, basketball and track & field, and was inducted into the Owatonna High School Hall of Fame in 1998. He went on to play at the University of Minnesota, where he played alongside lottery picks Mychal Thompson, Kevin McHale and Flip Saunders and was on the 1976-77 team that finished 24-3.

Kosmoski has directed basketball camps for 35 years, connecting with over 30,000 youth, leading Clem Haskins’ camps for 14 years and his own Coach Koz Fundamental Basketball Camp since 1999-2000. He has also been part of four tours through Athletes in Action, traveling to Spain in 2003, Vilnius, Lithuania in 2009 and Wukulf, Poland in 2012 and 2014.