BALTIMORE – Chris Santo, who led an NCAA Division II team to a conference title and NCAA regional title game as a head coach in 2025-26, has joined the Loyola University Maryland men's basketball team as an assistant, Head Coach Josh Loeffler announced today.
 
Santo comes to Loyola after a two-year stretch as head coach at Saint Anselm College. A 2015 graduate of the Manchester, New Hampshire, school, Santo led the Hawks to a 40-23 (.635) overall record in 2024-26, the 2026 Northeast 10 Conference Championship and a bid in the NCAA Division II Tournament.
 
Saint Anselm picked up a pair of wins in its first two NCAA East Region Championship Games, beating Assumption and Felician before bowing out in the Round of 16 to Daemen.
 
The Hawks finished the 2025-26 season with a 25-8 overall record and 14-4 mark in conference play, earning their first NCAA Tournament bid since 2023. The 25 wins rank fourth in the program's 87-season history and were a 10-win improvement from 2024-25, his first season as the head coach.
 
"Chris has won consistently in his career, be it as a player, assistant, or head coach," said Loeffler. "He comes with great recommendations from some of the best coaches in our sport; he will be a great asset and I'm very excited to get him working with our team."
 
Santo earned the unique distinction of becoming the first in Northeast 10 history to earn the conference's Player of the Year (2015) and Coach of the Year (2026) honors. He is also the only person in Northeast 10 history to win a conference title as a player, assistant and head coach.
 
As Saint Anselm's head coach, Santo led 2025-26 Northeast 10 Player of the Year Will Davies and back-to-back Northeast 10 Rookies of the Year in Edward Onyia and Erik Oliver-Bush. He coached six All- Northeast 10 honorees in two seasons.
 
Santo became the head coach of the Hawks prior to the 2024-25 season after spending three seasons as an assistant coach at Vermont, where he helped the Catamounts to a 79-24 record from 2021-24 while winning three-straight America East Conference regular-season and tournament titles.
 
He spent the 2020-21 season as the assistant video coordinator for the New York Knicks, where he worked with the coaching staff to develop game plans and opponent scouting reports and also assisted with film analysis, player development and analytics. The Knicks earned their first NBA Playoffs bid in eight years during his time in the Big Apple as they went 41-31 overall. Julius Randle earned NBA Most Improved Player honors, and Tom Thibodeau was named the NBA Coach of the Year.
 
Prior to his time in New York, Santo was an assistant coach for four seasons at his alma mater with then-Head Coach Keith Dickson. The Hawks went to four-straight NCAA Division II Tournaments from 2016-19 and reached the NCAA Division II Final Four in 2019. During the four years, seven Hawks earned all-conference honors, and Santo was named to the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) 30 Under 30 list in 2018.
 
The Cherry Hill, New Jersey, native started his collegiate playing career in 2011-12 at Vermont when the Catamounts won the America East Championship and beat Lamar in the NCAA Tournament First Round. He played the final three seasons of his college eligibility at Saint Anselm and was a key member of two Northeast 10 regular-season championship teams.
 
He was a team captain in 2014-15, setting a school record with 252 field goals made while averaging 21.3 points per game, earning All-America honors from the NABC and Daktronics before playing in the NABC Reese's Division II College All-Star Game. Santo later played one season in Europe for Falken Cynergi Virtus in Malta, where he helped the team win the Malta Basketball Association First Division Championship.
 
Santo graduated from Saint Anselm in 2015 with a degree in history and secondary education.