Men's Basketball Coaching Staff
Head Coach Tom Palombo
Tom Palombo took over as Guilford’s head men’s basketball coach in July 2003 and in six years has restored the school's tradition of basketball excellence. Last season, Palombo's Quakers broke onto the national scene for a third straight year with a 26-6 record and their third NCAA Division III playoff appearance. For his efforts, the 20-year head coaching veteran holds three Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) Men’s Basketball Coach of the Year Awards. He received his second South Region Coach of the Year honor in three years from D3hoops.com.
Palombo has a 117-53 record in six Guilford seasons and a 217-116 mark in 12 years as a head men’s basketball coach. Four Quakers have earned All-ODAC honors seven times under Palombo’s guidance, including Ben Strong '08, Guilford's first two-time ODAC Player of the Year. Strong, a two-time first team All-American, also captured 2007 national player of the year recognition from the NABC and D3hoops.com.
Palombo's overall basketball head-coaching record is 355-158 in 19 seasons with eight NCAA Tournament berths, including four national quarterfinal appearances. He came to Guilford from Defiance College where he compiled a 100-63 mark and coached nine all-conference students as the Yellow Jackets’ head men’s basketball coach. His six-year stint as the Ohio school’s men’s coach followed three seasons as its women’s mentor during which time the team went 78-7. He also coached the Yellow Jackets’ men’s golf team for nine years, the tennis team for three years and taught in the sports science department.
Guilford's 14th head men's basketball coach, Palombo guided Defiance to the 1999 Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association Tournament title, earning his first NCAA Division III Tournament bid with the men's team. Two years later the Yellow Jackets returned to the national playoffs after winning the 2000-01 Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference (HCAC) championship.
Full-court defensive pressure and up-tempo offenses characterize Palombo's teams. Defiance went 17-10 in 2002-03 and produced the HCAC's Freshman of the Year and team scoring title for the second straight season. Despite missing a conference tournament title game for the first time in four years, the Yellow Jackets led the HCAC in scoring and attendance and finished sixth among Division III teams with an 85.9 points per game average. The 2001-02 club ranked second among the national scoring leaders (91.6 ppg.).
Palombo took over Defiance's 8-17 men's team in 1997
after finishing his second straight 28-1 season as the Yellow Jackets' women's
coach. He guided an eight-player ladies' unit to a 22-5 mark and the second
round of the NCAA playoffs in 1995, followed by a 28-1 campaign that earned him
the 1996 D3News National Division III Coach of the Year Award. The Yellow
Jackets' women reached the Division III quarterfinals and led the nation in
scoring and attendance in 1995-96 and 1996-97.
A 1989 Virginia Wesleyan graduate, Palombo's hire marks his return to the Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) where he starred on Don Forsyth's basketball teams and played baseball for the Marlins from 1986-89. He competed for Guilford College Athletics Hall of Fame member Conrad Parker's '62 basketball teams at Bayside High School in Virginia Beach. After earning his bachelor's degree in communications and journalism from Virginia Wesleyan in 1989, Palombo received his master's degree in education with an emphasis in sport management from Old Dominion in 1991 and returned to Virginia Wesleyan as its women's basketball coach, softball coach, and sports information director. He averaged 15 basketball wins in three-plus seasons and won the 1992 ODAC Coach of the Year Award. The Marlins' softball squads went 101-56-1 and captured three straight ODAC titles from 1991-93.
He serves on the NCAA South Region Advisory Committee and is the chair of the Men's ODAC Basketball Coaches. Palombo coached the ODAC Senior All-Star game in 2007 which won over USA-South's Senior All-Stars.
Palombo and his wife, Amy, live in Greensboro with their four young children, Kylee, Reagan, Davis, and Caleb.