SUNYIT's Men's Basketball Coach and Two Players Receive NABC Honors

The awards just won’t stop for the men’s basketball team, as SUNYIT men’s basketball Head Coach and Athletics Director Kevin Grimmer has been selected as the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) East Region Coach of the Year, while junior David Golembiowski (Barneveld, NY/Holland Patent) and senior Diloo Brown (Harlem, NY/Technical Careers Institute) were both named to the All-East Region Team.

It is the third such honor for Grimmer this season, as he was also named the Coach of the Year for the North Eastern Athletic Conference and the D3Hoops.com East Region.  Grimmer earned all three awards after leading the Wildcats to their greatest season in program history, guiding the team to its second consecutive NEAC Championship and its first-ever trip to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament.  The team finished a program-best 26-5 overall and won a school-record eighteen straight contests during the season.

Golembiowski was named to the NABC All-East Region First Team after a phenomenal year in which he was also crowned the NEAC Player of the Year for the second straight season and the Eastern College Athletic Conference Upstate Player of the Year, as well as being selected to the NEAC All-Conference First Team, the ECAC Upstate Region First Team, and the D3Hoops.com All-East Region First Team.  The 6-foot-7 sharpshooter led the team in points (21.1), rebounds (10.3) and blocks (3.0) per game and free throw percentage (.794), while being second in both field goal percentage (.501) and three-pointers made (72).  He also led the NEAC in both points and blocks and was second in rebounds, while ranking seventh in the nation in blocks per game, highlighted by his school-record nine blocks in one game.  Golembiowski, who was selected as a D3Hoops.com Preseason All-American, became the program's all-time leader in career rebounds and blocks this season, while also scoring his 1,500th career point on the year to help him place second all time in that category.

Brown was named to the All-East Region Second Team after also having an incredible season, as he was selected to the NEAC All-Conference First Team for the second year in a row after leading the team and conference in both assists (4.9) and three-pointers made (92), while also leading the team in steals per game (2.1).  The 6-foot guard also averaged 17.6 points and 6.9 rebounds per game, which were both second-best on the team, while shooting 43 percent from the field and 37 percent from beyond the arc.  He was named the NEAC Tournament's Most Valuable Player for the second straight season after registering three-game averages of 18.3 points, 10 rebounds, 6.7 assists, 3.3 steals and 1 block per contest.  Additionally, Brown won one NEAC Student-Athlete of the Week award and was a D3Hoops.com Team of the Week selection throughout the course of the season.  Brown certainly left his mark on the program during his tremendous two-year run as Wildcat, as he scored his 1,000th career point in a SUNYIT uniform this season and is fifth in school history in that department, while being second all-time in both free throws made and attempted, third in steals and fourth in both assists and three-pointers made.

All of the NABC All-District teams can be found here.