Canton, NY – Jesse Bender has been named the next assistant coach of the SUNY Canton men's basketball program, as announced by Head Coach Dylan Seikel.
 
Bender joins the Roos after serving as an assistant coach at Arapahoe High School last season in Centennial, Colorado, a suburb of Denver. Arapahoe is a 6A school in the Centennial League, one of the toughest in the state of Colorado.
 
"We are thrilled to welcome Coach Bender to the SUNY Canton men's basketball family," Seikel said. "Jesse's experience coaching multiple levels of basketball will greatly assist our program moving forward. Coach Bender has a wealth of knowledge and is eager to help our players improve on and off the court."
 
Prior to his time in the greater Denver area, Bender was an assistant coach with the International Sports Academy (ISA) at Andrews Osborne, a prominent prep basketball academy in Cleveland, Ohio. During the 2021-22 season the team played a national schedule that took them to 11 different states playing high-level competition.
 
While in Cleveland he also spent time as a head coach at Luke Toth Basketball, an AAU program run by Luke Toth, a skill development coach for the National Basketball Association's (NBA) Cleveland Cavaliers. Before joining the staff at ISA, Bender was an assistant varsity and head junior varsity coach at Denver West High School.
 
"I am extremely excited to be joining the SUNY Canton's men's basketball staff for the upcoming 2023-24 season," Bender said. "I hope to bring enthusiasm and intensity to our program and help our student-athletes achieve success. I am ready to work with Coach Seikel to build something special with him in the North Country."
 
The Roos are scheduled to open the 2023-24 regular season on November 8th when they host Paul Smith's College.
   
About SUNY Canton
As Northern New York's premier college for career-driven bachelor's degrees, associate degrees and professional certificate programs, SUNY Canton delivers quality hands-on programs in digital design, engineering technology, health, management and public service. Faculty members are noted for their professional real-world experience in addition to outstanding academic credentials. As SUNY's leader in online education, SUNY Canton OnLine offers hundreds of flexible and convenient courses as well as 23 online degree programs. The college placed first in 14 categories in a SUNY-Wide Student Opinion Survey, most notably in career services, tutoring, library resources, and classroom facilities. The SUNY Canton Kangaroos 15 traditional athletic teams compete at the NCAA Division III level as part of the North Atlantic Conference. SUNY Canton also features varsity esports and cheerleading.