Long Island Lutheran boys basketball's Mingo brothers, Kayden and Dylan, leaving their mark on prestigious program
Dylan and Kayden Mingo pose for a photo prior to their game against St. Joseph Collegiate on Saturday. Credit: Dawn McCormick
Separated by 20 months in age, Kayden and Dylan Mingo will forever be bonded as brothers away from the hardwood. But on the floor, the basketball stars and Farmingdale natives have a chance to do something momentous: bring the Long Island Lutheran boys program its first national championship.
Older brother Kayden, a 6-3 senior guard, and younger brother Dylan, a 6-5 junior guard, are part of a core leading the Crusaders, a program that has won nine state Federation titles and is currently ranked second nationally by ESPN and boasting 10 Newsday Top 100 selections. They are living a dream playing together at the highest level of high school hoops, but it is not because of happenstance.
“A lot of people don’t get to experience something like this with their brother,” Dylan said. “Being able to have my brother with me, by my side through this time, it’s a blessing.”
Said Kayden, “Usually brothers are a lot different in ages, so being able to play with mine, it’s really good. I wouldn’t want to play with anybody else.”
Kayden is signed to play at Penn State. The four-year LuHi varsity player earned Newsday All-Long Island first-team honors last year, averaging 14.4 points, 4.9 rebounds and 3.4 assists and shooting 44% from deep in EYBL Scholastic play, the premier national conference.
Dylan is a five-star prospect and the No. 1 player in New York in the Class of 2026, according to the 247Sports Composite rankings. He averaged 6.4 points as a sophomore. He is also on track to be a four-year LuHi varsity member, which coach John Buck said “is not common for this level.”
“Right here on Long Island, growing up here, playing the best competition, just across the whole country . . . it’s something noteworthy,” Buck said. “Their story is really a cool one with the hard work that they put in consistently. I think that’s just really one of the keys, the consistency.
“And then just working with their older brother, who’s been through this before, is a really cool element as well.”
Yes, there is also 29-year-old brother Dalique, about 12 years older than Kayden. A former Farmingdale High School basketball standout who earned Newsday All-Long Island honors in 2012 and 2013 and played Division I at Howard, Dalique owns Rare Breed Training and trains his younger brothers as early as 5 a.m. almost daily.
The Mingos have been destined for success — at LuHi and beyond. The road started at a young age.
Beginnings
Dylan’s first memory playing basketball with Kayden is shooting lefthanded layups with their dad, William. Before the boys learned other skills, they had to make 10 layups in a row with their off-hand.
“He didn’t want us to go out there and have anything for anybody else to take advantage of with us,” Kayden said. “He always enforced having a left hand and just being able to go both ways and being strong with both hands.”
The first time they remember playing in a game together was for the 7-under AAU NY Rens, when Dylan played up a level.
You won’t find Kayden and Dylan frequently engaging in hardcore one-on-one battles anymore, and for good reason. The physicality and competitive fire between the brothers dates back to when they were in elementary school.
“We were at a workout,” Kayden recalled. “We were playing one-on-one. It was going back and forth, real competitive. And then I think I did a Euro step, he ran into me a little bit, might have had me on that one. We just ran into each other and had stitches, above our eyebrow.”
Said Dylan, “Our dad doesn’t let us as much anymore because I got stitches because it was so physical, and we’re both competitive.”
Brotherly love
“Who are those kids?” Dalique remembers his Howard coaches telling him.
Around the Howard program during Dalique’s college career (2014-18), young Kayden and Dylan could be found wowing their elders with lefty layups.
The two were frequently near Dalique’s basketball journey, whether it was riding in car seats to and from basketball tournaments in Brooklyn or cheering on the then-Dalers star guard, who became just the fifth Farmingdale player to reach 1,000 career points during the 2012-13 season.
“I [don’t] remember them vividly, but they used to be insane,” Dylan said of the Farmingdale games. “Their student section used to be [great] because they were really, really good. That’s when I feel like Long Island basketball is really at its peak. Those games were insane.”
Dylan played a season at Farmingdale, averaging 13.8 points as an eighth-grader in the 2021-22 season.
Dalique began training around 2016, while he was still in school, and started his own company around 2019. He started training both brothers four-plus times per week when Kayden was in sixth grade, and the routine picked up during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think they were serious about it before,” Dalique said. “I think they just always wanted to be better than me. It’s like a competitive thing with, ‘I'm the best brother in the household.’ That’s how they work.”
Kayden added: “I feel like COVID was the perfect time to do it because we’re right in the backyard, we had a lot of time . . . There wasn’t really much to do during COVID. Even before that, he was training us. But it was during that time, we just started working out even more and more because there really wasn’t much to do outside of school and that’s really about it.
“We were just working out a lot, and I feel like that’s when our game started to develop a lot.”
The routine?
At least four times during a five-day week in the high school season, Kayden is Dalique’s first session at 5 a.m. at an LA Fitness near the younger brothers. Dylan follows at 6.
Monday and Tuesday could represent full workouts — shooting, dribbling, game experiences and more. Thursday and Friday could be putting up 400-to-500 shots before school.
During the summer, they would work out up to twice per day, six days per week, usually in Massapequa.
“[Dalique’s] always going to be my brother, and we’re always going to love each other,” Dylan said. “But I wouldn’t want him to be my trainer if he wasn’t going to push me. Knowing that’s my brother, he could always keep it real with me knowing there’s not any real boundaries because we’re going to be brothers regardless.”
Buck does not take for granted the “incredible discipline and dedication” in the Mingos’ pro-like routine.
“You say wake up at 5 a.m. to most high school kids, I don’t even think they conceptualize that,” Buck said. “But there are a select few, whether it be basketball or other sports — people that do skating or gymnastics or whatever it might be — there is a select few that do it. These guys have chosen to do it for the sport of basketball, and it’s just — along with their natural abilities — really helped them separate.”
Leaving a legacy
The word “legacy” can be casually thrown around, but the Mingos do not take it lightly.
When Buck reflected on what the Mingo name could represent in the years to come at LuHi, he admitted it is hard to think about during the grind. But the answer is evident.
“They’re a family that understands gratitude,” Buck said. “They understand sacrifice. They understand hard work. And although we’re in the mix and we’re in the throes right now, I believe if they just keep doing what they’ve done, they’ll help leave a really cool stamp on their years here.”
When Kayden first arrived at LuHi, the Crusaders played as an independent. Three years later, both brothers are part of a group that is perennially viewed as a national power. Kayden and Dylan have been crucial to the program’s rise — and its legitimate chase for a national title.
“I want me and Kayden to leave LuHi and people say, ‘Oh, LuHi is different now,’ ” Dylan said. “I’d say more — not so on the court — but off the court, saying we were just nice people all the time. We would always help people, and we were always kind and great in that nature. I’d say basketball-wise, I mean, I want to give us a national championship.
“That’s without a doubt. Everybody’s going to remember that.”
Ben Dickson joined Newsday’s high school sports staff in 2023 after graduating from Maryland, where he covered several of the Terrapins' teams.