Dick Bihr, Buffalo State College’s most successful men's head basketball coach, will be inducted into the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame tonight at HSBC Arena.

Bihr coached the Bengals for 25 seasons and finished with a record of 449-211. Bihr, who played at Buffalo State from 1965-69, was named State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) Coach of the Year six times.

His Bengals won the State University of New York Athletic Conference Basketball Championship 11 times and advanced to the NCAA Division III tournament 12 times. His teams posted 20-win seasons on 10 separate occasions, and he coached several 1,000-point scorers and SUNYAC Most Valuable Players during his 25-year tenure at Buffalo State College.

The Bengals received their highest ranking under Bihr during the 1982-83 season, when they earned the top spot in the nation after a 10-0 start that included upsets of Division I teams Niagara and Canisius. The following year, the Bengals posted their first SUNYAC Championship and first NCAA tournament berth under Bihr. The team went 23-5 -- the best in school history to that point. The Bengals repeated as SUNYAC champs the next two years and placed second in the NCAA East Regionals. Bihr’s teams won five consecutive conference championships from 1988-1992, and the Bengals again earned the top spot in the nation in 1990 after winning their first 17 games to post a 27-2 record that year.

Bihr received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Exceptional Education and Master of science degree in education from Buffalo State College and a Master of Business Administration from Canisius College. He was head basketball coach at St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute in Kenmore from 1971-1979 before joining Buffalo State in 1979.