Linda Cimino - Women's Basketball Coach - Dartmouth College Athletics

Linda Cimino

Title:
Gail Koziara Boudreaux ’82 and Family Head Coach of Women's Basketball
Alma Mater:
Adelphi ’01
Phone (603):
603-646-3194
At Dartmouth:
Fourth Year (2023-)

Linda Cimino enters her fourth season leading the Dartmouth women's basketball program as the Gail Koziara Boudreaux '82 and Family Head Coach of Women's Basketball, a position she has held since joining the Big Green in May of 2023.

In 2025-26, Cimino led Dartmouth to its best season since 2019-20, finishing 10-17 overall and 1-13 in Ivy League play. The Big Green opened the campaign with a win over Boston University on Nov. 7, then reeled off back-to-back victories, downing Colby-Sawyer 98-33 before taking a 10-point win at Siena on Nov. 16. Dartmouth went on to post its longest winning streak in a decade, stringing together five straight wins over CCSU, Bucknell, NJIT, Iona and Franklin Pierce. Ivy League play featured an 18-point home win over Yale on Jan. 31, punctuated by a career-best 30-point performance from Zeynep Opal. Cimino coached Academic All-Ivy honoree Nina Minicozzi that season, along with four CSC Academic All-District honorees: Sierra Carson, Alexandra Eldredge, Minicozzi and Tahira Muhammad.

The previous season, 2024-25, Dartmouth finished 8-19 overall and 2-12 in Ivy play, a campaign highlighted by a strong non-league slate and a fast start to conference play. The Big Green went 5-1 over a six-game stretch from December to January, their best six-game run since 2007-08, and opened 2-0 in Ivy play for the first time since 2009-10 with road wins over Brown and Penn, the program's first win over Penn since February 2010 and first win over the Quakers since February 2014. To close non-league play, Dartmouth won at Central Connecticut State and Lafayette, with a loss at Syracuse standing as its only defeat in a nearly 40-day span. Earlier in the year, the Big Green topped Navy in overtime, marking the second straight season they beat the Midshipmen. Victoria Page led that win with a career-high 26 points, earning Ivy League Player of the Week, Dartmouth's first winner of that award since 2018. Page later became just the 20th player in program history to reach 1,000 career points, doing so in the season finale against Harvard, and earned honorable mention All-Ivy, the program's first All-Ivy honoree since 2018-19.

In 2023-24, Cimino's first year at Dartmouth, the Big Green more than tripled their win total from the previous season and earned the program's first Ivy League win since 2021-22. Wins over New Hampshire, Merrimack, UMass Lowell, Navy and Cornell highlighted a season in which Dartmouth ranked second in the Ivy League in scoring defense and committed the fewest fouls per game in the nation. The Big Green ranked among the top five nationally in scoring defense as late as February, aided by Doreen Ariik, who led the Ivy League with 1.7 blocks per game.

Cimino came to Hanover after a successful five-year stint at St. Francis Brooklyn. In 2018-19, her first season with the Terriers, she led the team to a program-record 12 conference victories. Her 2021-22 squad topped that mark with a 13-3 conference record and upset Michigan State in non-conference play for the program's first-ever win over a Power Five opponent. St. Francis Brooklyn has posted four winning conference records in its 50-year history, and Cimino was at the helm for three of them. The 2001 Adelphi graduate coached 10 All-NEC performers at St. Francis Brooklyn, including Amy O'Neill, who earned first-team honors and led the nation in assists per game in 2018-19. Two of her players were named NEC Rookie of the Year: Nevena Dimitrijevic (2019-20) and Fruzsina Horvath (2020-21).

Prior to that, Cimino spent four seasons as head coach at Binghamton, taking the Bearcats from four wins in her first season to 20 in her last. She was named 2015-16 America East Women's Basketball Coach of the Year after raising the team's win total by 10 games in one of the nation's biggest turnarounds. In her final season, 2017-18, Binghamton topped 20 wins for the first time in its then-17-year history as a Division I program, capped by a Women's Basketball Invitational appearance, the program's first-ever Division I national postseason game, in which the Bearcats defeated Youngstown State. Binghamton averaged better than 15 wins and played at or above .500 in conference play in each of Cimino's final three seasons there. Under Cimino, Binghamton became the only America East program to land all four major conference awards (Player of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year and Coach of the Year) at least once in a four-year span. Imani Watkins was named 2018 America East Player of the Year, the first Bearcat so honored since 2002, while Alyssa James became just the second three-time Defensive Player of the Year honoree in conference history.

Cimino spent eight years, beginning in 2006, as head coach at Division II Caldwell University, where she is the program's all-time winningest coach with 128 victories, including 90 over her final five seasons, after Caldwell had won just 39 games in the four years prior to her arrival. She also served as associate director of athletics and senior woman administrator throughout her tenure at Caldwell.

She began her collegiate head coaching career in 2001 at Queensborough Community College. Before that, she coached girls' basketball for three seasons and volleyball for four at Calhoun High School in Merrick, New York, and returned to the collegiate ranks as an assistant coach at her alma mater, Adelphi, for the 2005-06 season.

In addition to her coaching career, Cimino chaired the NCAA Women's Basketball Rules Committee from 2018-2020 and served a concurrent two-year term on the NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Competition Committee.

A native of Lincoln, Rhode Island, Cimino played collegiately at Adelphi under current Michigan head coach Kim Barnes Arico, earning her bachelor's degree in health and physical education in 2001 and a master's in health education in 2004. She was inducted into the Rhode Island Interscholastic League Hall of Fame in 2019.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING

“Linda is a great hire for so many reasons. As a successful head coach, she has taken on new challenges at various stops and consistently found great people and unparalleled success. She brings authentic energy and passion as well as a winning mentality to the Big Green. The day the job opened, she wanted it. She knows Dartmouth is special, and I’m excited to be her biggest fan on her journey! She won’t be outworked and she’s ready to win!”
— Courtney Banghart ’00, North Carolina Women’s Basketball Head Coach

“Linda has been very successful building and turning around programs. She has always done more with less at every stop. Her career success at private academic institutions leads to this great opportunity at Dartmouth. I’m looking forward to her recruiting, development and program building in the Ivy League.”
— Jose Fernandez, South Florida Women’s Basketball Head Coach

“Dartmouth has hit the jackpot with the hiring of Linda Cimino to lead their women’s basketball program. She is the epitome of a servant leader and one of the hardest working professionals in this business. She will have the Big Green competing for Ivy League championships in no time! An exceptional choice!”
— Billi Chambers, Xavier Women’s Basketball Head Coach

“I am so happy for Linda and for Dartmouth. I have known Linda since she played for me at Adelphi and have loved watching her coaching journey over the years. She has always been an incredibly hard worker, both as a player and a coach. She brings such great energy and understanding of the game to the sidelines. I am excited for her to continue her coaching career at Dartmouth and wish her continued success.”
— Kim Barnes Arico, Michigan Women’s Basketball Head Coach

“Coach Cimino was integral to building our program to Northeast Conference contenders in the last two seasons. Her ability to build a team and get the most out of our student-athletes will serve her well in her new position with Dartmouth. She is an incredible coach and even better person/friend. I wish her all the best!”
— Irma Garcia, St. Francis College Director of Athletics