Tom Devitt has been added to the University of Hartford men’s basketball coaching staff, as announced by fourth-year Head Coach John Gallagher. The new director of basketball operations, Devitt brings nearly 20 years of experience, including six at the Division I level, to Hartford.
“Tom brings a wealth of experience at both the Division I and Division III levels,” declared Gallagher at the time of Devitt’s hiring. “Anytime you have the opportunity to bring in someone who not only has extensive basketball knowledge but also knows our system, it is a huge advantage.”
Devitt arrives to Hartford by way of Wentworth Institute of Technology where he spent 11 seasons as the team’s head coach. During Devitt’s time as head coach, Wentworth, which posted just five wins in his first year as head coach, won the Commonwealth Coast Conference Championship four years later in 2007, making the program’s first NCAA Division III Tournament appearance since the 1997 campaign.
A two-time CCC Coach of the Year in 2007 and 2010, Devitt brought his squad to eight consecutive CCC Tournament appearances while amassing a program-best 139 wins, including 66 over his final four seasons. The last four seasons also included four-straight ECAC Tournament bids for the Leopards.
“I am honored to be working with John Gallagher and such a distinguished group of professionals both on the coaching staff, and in the athletic department at the University of Hartford,” declared Devitt. “I hope to assist the program and in particular, this collection of impressive student-athletes.”
Devitt jumped into NCAA Division I men’s basketball early, working for the men’s hoops team at Boston College, his alma mater, as an undergraduate student assistant. Upon graduation, he stayed with the team for four more years after being hired as the Eagles’ director of basketball operations.
Devitt’s and Gallagher’s paths crossed several years before reuniting at Hartford. After winning the BIG EAST Championship in 1997, Boston College lost in the second round of the NCAA Tournament to Gallagher’s St. Joseph’s Hawks at the Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Following his stint at Boston College, Devitt, a Washington, D.C. native, returned to his hometown to take on his first assistant coaching job with the men’s basketball team at American University.
