Tom Rickard earns BCANY JUCO Division II Coach of the Year honor

NJCAA Basketball · By Marcus Chen · June 28, 2026

Tom Rickard added another statewide honor to a SUNY Orange season that kept the Colts in the national conversation from Region XV through the NJCAA Division II tournament. The Basketball Coaches Association of New York named the SUNY Orange head coach its 2025-26 JUCO Division II Coach of the Year on June 25, recognizing a year defined by postseason wins, roster growth and another deep March run.

The award fit the résumé Rickard has built in Middletown. He is in his 13th season leading the Colts, after seven years as an assistant and a stint as associate head coach in 2005-06, when Orange reached the NJCAA Division II national tournament for the first time in school history. Rickard is also a SUNY Orange alumnus who scored 1,010 career points, a total that still places him 11th in program history.

This season gave him the kind of proof coaches chase. SUNY Orange won its third straight Region XV championship and followed that with its second straight East District A title, then climbed as high as No. 11 in the national rankings. The Colts swept Region XV rival Rockland with an 84-82 win after earlier victories of 94-80 and 89-60, then handled Mercer 102-83 in the East District A championship. That stretch showed a team that did not just collect trophies, but kept adjusting when the schedule tightened.

The national tournament run added the sharpest evidence. SUNY Orange opened with an 80-78 first-round win over Prince George’s in Danville, Illinois, getting the final margin from Anthony Pacciarelli’s two free throws with four seconds left. The Colts then fell to top-ranked Palm Beach State in the Sweet Sixteen, but recovered in the consolation bracket with a 103-91 win over Mid-Michigan College. The results lined up with Rickard’s fifth straight Region XV Coach of the Year award, which he received after the regional tournament on March 2, 2026.

Tournament Points — Data visualization chart

The roster also reflected the program’s reach. Pacciarelli was named Region XV Player of the Year on March 2, broke SUNY Orange’s single-season scoring record on March 17 and earned First Team All-America honors on April 9. After the season, the Colts listed Pacciarelli, Darren McFarlane, Keishawn Morris and Giovani Rupert as players moving on to Manhattan, Pace, Lake Erie and LSU Alexandria, another sign that Rickard’s best seasons keep sending players upward as well as stacking wins.