Ontario Tech athletic director Scott Barker is pleased to announce
Deluxshan Pathmanathan as the next head coach of the men's basketball program.
In April, Pathmanathan was named interim head coach, filling in for the program's first head coach, Greg Francis.
"Deluxshan has done an amazing job with the team as the interim head coach," said Barker. "His commitment to developing student-athletes and challenging them to push themselves has created a culture that everyone wants to be part of. He made my decision easy to promote him to the next head coach of the program. The team is ready to be contenders in the OUA and with him leading the way, I am confident the program will have great success."
This season he earned his first OUA victory on November 26 when the Ridgebacks defeated the Waterloo Warriors 77-75. He then went on to lead the Ridgebacks a program-high four wins this season, which included final weekend sweep with victories over the Laurentian Voyageurs and Nipissing Lakers.
The Ridgebacks were also competitive with the nation's best teams, losing by only a single point twice to the No. 1 ranked team in the country (Carleton – January 13 and Ottawa – January 27).
"I am humbled and honored to be named the head coach of men's basketball at Ontario Tech," said Pathmanathan. "I want to thank our president Dr. Steven Murphy, athletic director Scott Barker and all the administration for entrusting me to lead the program at Ontario Tech. Over the past year as the interim head coach, I have had the opportunity to establish a culture with the program, work with developing our talented and passionate student-athletes and assist in building an environment for high-performance. I am excited to continue this work and build a competitive program. I also want to thank my wife for all her support off the court, which allows me to chase my dreams every day."
Prior to this season as interim head coach, Pathmanathan was the lead assistant coach with Ontario Tech since it launched basketball in 2019-20, following three seasons as the lead assistant coach with Durham College men's basketball from 2016-19.
Prior to, and alongside his postsecondary coaching experience, Pathmanathan has been a head coach with Team Ontario since 2018. He also had the opportunity to be the head coach for the Sri Lankan U-18 national team, coaching them to the country's first ever international win in the Youth Olympics.
He currently lives in Oshawa with his wife Nicky, son Kobe and his daughter Alaiya. Pathmanathan is a NCCP Level 3 coach that has BA in psychology from York and BEd in adult education from Brock.
