Evans to lead men's basketball program

Dan Evans is the new men's basketball head coach at the University of North Georgia (UNG). He becomes only the fourth coach in program history.

Members of the UNG community can meet Evans at a 10:30 a.m. April 19 press conference in the multipurpose room of the Convocation Center.

Evans spent the previous six years at NCAA Division II Ohio Dominican University (ODU), where he totaled 76 victories and reached the 2017-18 NCAA tournament by winning the Great Midwest Athletic Conference (G-MAC) tournament. ODU won 12 of its final 13 games that season, but lost to eventual national champion Ferris State in the first round of the 2018 NCAA DII tournament.

Evans led his team to a 37-22 mark the past two seasons, including 20-11 in 2017-18. The program won a combined 15 games in the three seasons preceding his arrival.

"Foremost, we want to welcome Dan, his wife Amy, and kids TR and Maddie to our university community as the newest members of the Nighthawk Athletics family," UNG Director of Athletics Lindsay Reeves said. "Coach Evans possesses a clear understanding of the core values of UNG and will mentor our student-athletes to successes on the court, in the classroom and in the community."

Evans finished as the third-winningest coach in ODU history. He led the Panthers to three consecutive winning seasons, a first since 2005 for ODU, to close out his time there.

"My family and I feel incredibly blessed and excited to be joining the University of North Georgia family and the Dahlonega community," Evans said. "We look forward to leading our men's basketball program into the future with tremendous young men who will represent our program in a first-class manner. We are eager to get on campus and get to work shaping Nighthawk basketball with our student-athletes."

Evans spent six seasons as an assistant coach at Hillsdale College before taking over at ODU.

He played at Division III Lawrence University in Wisconsin, where he was a three-year starter and captain. Evans was an all-conference performer as a senior and led Lawrence to the Elite Eight in 2004.

"Our mission when we began this search was to identify the best fit for North Georgia including our student-athletes, staff, fans, alumni, and our local community. We found that in Coach Evans," Reeves said. "Throughout the interview process, he rose to top of an extremely talented candidate pool with his vision for putting UNG men's basketball in the national spotlight."