Men’s basketball head coach Jim Engles will step down from his post effective immediately, Columbia Athletics announced in a Monday news release.

Engles joined the program in 2016 after a stint as an assistant coach for the team from 2003 to 2008. The news of his departure was first reported by ESPN’s Pete Thamel early Monday afternoon. Peter Pilling, Columbia’s athletic director, confirmed the news less than an hour later in the announcement.

“We are grateful for Jim’s leadership during his time at Columbia,” Pilling said in the news release. “First and foremost, Jim is an outstanding person who dedicated a great deal of effort to achieving success here. We wish Jim and his family all the best.”

Engles leaves the program after nine seasons, posting an overall record of 71-150 during his tenure. While he helped the Lions find historic success in this year’s non-conference season, Columbia ended the 2024-25 campaign on a somber note with only one win in Ivy League play.

“Columbia has meant so much to me, and I’ve given everything I have to make this program the best it can be,” Engles stated in the news release. “We may not have accomplished our ultimate goals, but I’m proud of the culture we built and the student-athletes we developed on and off the court. I also want to thank Peter Pilling for his support throughout the years and know the future of this program is bright.”

The former National Coach of the Week finishes his term with the Lions having secured Columbia three AP Top 25 votes and orchestrating the team’s best start to a season in over half a century with an 8-0 record, including a 90-80 win against Villanova. Additionally, he saw 10 players go on to play professionally both internationally and in the NBA G league.

The news of Engles’ departure comes the same day that Penn fired its longtime men’s basketball coach Steve Donahue, who served as an assistant coach for nine seasons and as head coach since 2015. The departures of both Donahue and Engles signify a major change within Ancient Eight men’s basketball. With former Cornell head coach Brian Earl’s departure last year, three of the eight coaches that served between 2016 and 2024 have left the Ivy League.

The Monday news release also announced that “a national search for a replacement will commence immediately.”

When a similar search for a men’s basketball coach commenced two decades ago following the departure of former head coach Armond Hill, the school considered candidates like Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and two-time national champion Bobby Hurley. Multiple reports have indicated the likes of current University of Florida men’s basketball assistant coach and former Columbia staff member Kevin Hovde and New York University head coach Dave Klatsky as two names rumoured to be in the running.

Engles originally joined the men’s basketball program as an assistant coach under then-head coach Joe Jones in 2003 and helped lead the team back to winning ways after a 0-14 Ivy League campaign the season prior.

A 6-8 conference record in his first campaign granted Jones and his staff the third-best single season improvement in Ivy League history.

Engles stayed with the Light Blue until 2008. He would go on to become head coach at the New Jersey Institute of Technology before returning to Morningside Heights in 2016 as the head coach. “I am humbled and beyond excited to become the next head basketball coach at Columbia,” Engles said in a 2016 news release. “My first experience here was tremendous. I look forward to reconnecting with some of my former colleagues that are still here and I cannot wait to get to work with this special group of student-athletes.”

Upon his return, Engles led the Lions to a fifth-place finish in the Ivy League with a 5-9 conference finish, a record which they emulated for the following two seasons. His debut season would prove to be Columbia’s best conference finish of his tenure, with a sixth-place finish in the 2017-18 season and a seventh-place finish in the 2018-19 season.

Engles and the Lions placed last in the 2019-20 conference season, which did not have a conference tournament due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The following 2020-21 season was also canceled due to the pandemic.

Since the return of Ancient Eight basketball in the 2021-22 season, Columbia posted three more last-place finishes across the four most recent seasons of Engles’ tenure.

Even with a sixth-place finish in the 2023-24 season and a record-breaking 11-2 nonconference showing that produced the best start in program history since 1970, Engles was unable to close his time at Columbia with a winning season, concluding his final campaign with a 12-15 overall record.