The SUNY Old Westbury Panther men's basketball season didn't end the way its players and coaches had hoped, but they experienced history nonetheless.
While the Panthers failed to reach the playoffs in the Skyline Conference, the team did get to celebrate its coach, Bernard Tomlin, who during the season earned his 450th victory as a head coach. At the season's end, his all-time total stood at 452 victories. Since joining Old Westbury in 2001, he has earned a record of 329-287, becoming the all-time leader in wins in the history of the University's basketball program.
"I would just like to thank all the athletes and coaches that I have been blessed to work with," said Tomlin. "It has truly been an honor to coach and work with so many talented individuals."
His long tenure at Old Westbury has included leadership that brought the Panthers to their first-ever NCAA tournament in 2004, and they then returned in 2016. For his success at Old Westbury, he has been named three times as the Skyline Conference Coach of the Year and in 2013 was named the Atlantic Region Coach of the Year by D3hoops.com.
A 1971 graduate of Malverne High School, Tomlin's record high of 45 points in one game lasted until 2009, when Dashawn Moorer scored 56 in an overtime game. In college, he transferred from Utah to Hofstra, where he had a 42-point game in the 1974-75 season. In 1976, he played guard on the first Hofstra team to make the NCAA Division I Tournament.
Tomlin was taken in the sixth round of the 1976 NBA Draft by the New Orleans Jazz. He did not make it to the NBA but played briefly for Brooklyn and Wilkes-Barre in the Eastern Basketball Association.
After a brief stint in the real estate business and assistant coaching stops at Hofstra, St. Bonaventure and Duquesne, his head coaching career began in 1986-87 when he guided William Patterson to a 20-9 mark. He spent the following season coaching Adelphi before joining longtime friend and Malverne teammate Al Skinner at the University of Rhode Island as an assistant coach. Tomlin became Stony Brook’s head coach in 1991-92, going 17-10 in his first season and compiling 100 wins over eight seasons.