SUNY OW’s Basketball Team Photo By: Dave Anderson
Bernard Tomlin has been the men’s basketball head coach at SUNY Old Westbury for nineteen years. He reminisces on the past season. He recently spoke about basketball and other things.
When asked about how he felt about the season in general, he said that he was very proud that the team as a whole faced a lot of adversity and met every challenge. One challenge Coach Tomlin emphasized was that during the beginning of the year, approximately October 15th-November 4th, the team had to commute to practice due to improvements being made on the floor in the gym.
Unfortunately, every team’s aim is to win a championship and they, unfortunately, fell short. Coach Tomlin addressed this when asked what he would have done differently. He kept it simple and answered, to have been more prepared.
He also mentioned losing an important player, Charles Wingate, who led the conference in steals and was one of the leaders on the team. Unfortunately, he was injured which was a huge setback for the team. Tomlin just wished all of the players had stayed healthy. “We would have seen a more well-rounded team if that was the case,” he said.
But as a whole, Tomlin was very satisfied and pleased with what the players did as a team. Another thing he noted was the game-winning play Pedro Marquez made after the team was down 20 points on senior night. The question everyone was wondering, did he draw it up for the ending play to go how it went. Tomlin said it was supposed to be a screenplay where Marquez would come of a pick and roll and get to his sweet spot but he took matters into his own hands and got to his spot without the screen and with a smooth step-back ended the game.
Getting off of this current season and looking to the next, Tomlin stressed, “Recruiting and looking for new talent to fill up those empty spots.”
Finally, after being asked what career he would have pursued if he hadn’t become a basketball coach, he replied that he would have designed his own clothes.
