SFC’s Bentick receives well-deserved promotion

'Loyal' assistant at Remsen Street school named associate head coach

August 8, 2019 JT Torenli

Newly named associate head coach Clive Bentick (center) has been working beside head coach Glenn Braica (kneeling, right) for nearly a decade during his 13-year tenure as an assistant at the Remsen Street school. Photo courtesy of SFC Brooklyn Athletics

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During his 13-year tenure as an assistant men’s basketball coach at St. Francis College, Clive Bentick has been a part of 10 NEC Tournament teams, an NIT participant and last year helped the Terriers receive a bid to the CIT Tournament.

For his efforts, the New York City native and basketball guru has been elevated to associate head coach under long-time SFC Brooklyn Head Coach Glenn Braica.

“We wanted to reward Coach Bentick for his loyalty, integrity and work ethic,” Braica said of Bentick, who is widely considered one of the top assistants in the Northeast Conference, if not all of Division I.

Bentick, who starred at point guard during his four years as a player at Canisius College, has mentored the Terriers’ back-court players throughout his tenure in Downtown Brooklyn.

Additionally, he plays a significant role in the development of offensive and defensive strategies, scouting of opponents and on-court coaching, according to Braica.

And most importantly?

“He’s a tremendous human being and a great role model for our student-athletes,” Braica noted.

While the Terriers are still seeking their first-ever NCAA Tournament berth, something that has eluded the school’s hoops program for over a century, Bentick has been at Braica’s side for some near-misses.

In 2015, SFC hosted the NEC Championship Game at the Pope Center and suffered a heartbreaking three-point loss to visiting Robert Morris in front of a sell-out crowd and a national television audience.

Though they haven’t been that close to March Madness since, the Terriers are always building toward that goal, as evidenced by their need to keep Bentick by Braica’s side before another program snatches him up.

The mentor of nine All-NEC selections also helped the Terriers get an invite to the postseason CIT last year after SFC won eight non-conference games, one shy of the school record, before again bowing out to RMU in the NECs.

“Coach Bentick has contributed to the success of the men’s basketball program here on Remsen Street, and we are happy to recognize him with this promotion,” said Braica, who took over the program from long-time head coach and current assistant Ron Ganulin back in 2010.

“We are thrilled that we can give him this opportunity to progress in his career.”

Whether or not Bentick is ultimately elevated to head coach at SFC is unknown, but this is clearly a move designed to keep a valuable asset and molder of great players in the fold.

At SFC, Bentick has tutored five players that wound up on the NEC All-Rookie Team, including current Terriers guard Jalen Jordan, who led the team in scoring with 14.8 points per contest last season.

SFC will kick off the 2019-20 campaign in November, and just as he has been for the past 13 years, Bentick will be on the bench and along the sidelines, prompting his young proteges to help take this program further than it has ever been before.

Though they will now be the Sharks instead of the Blackbirds, the LIU men’s basketball team will still be balling in Brooklyn at Downtown’s Steinberg Wellness Center beginning in November. Photo courtesy of LIU Athletics

Though our borough has been forced to wave bye-bye to the Blackbirds, the Sharks will still be swimming in Brooklyn waters, this coming campaign.

The new One LIU initiative, which combines the athletic programs of the Downtown school and the former C.W. Post campus in Brookville, N.Y., has sent several of the men’s and women’s athletics programs out to Long Island.

But men’s and women’s basketball will remain Brooklyn-based, and this week the men’s program released its schedule for the 2019-20 season, including 13 dates here in our fair borough.

The newly renamed Sharks will kick off their home schedule Nov. 8 against UMass-Lowell at the Steinberg Wellness Center, the home of four NCAA Tournament participants in the past decade.

LIU will also host Delaware (Dec. 20) and St. Peter’s (Dec. 22) here as part of its non-conference home slate before diving into NEC action at the Wellness Center against Central Connecticut State (Jan. 9) and Fairleigh Dickinson (Jan. 11).

The two showdowns with SFC Brooklyn begin with a Jan. 15 visit to Remsen Street before the Terriers walk across the neighborhood to take on the Sharks Feb. 18.

At least one of the Sharks’ home dates will be at Downtown’s Barclays Center, though that game has not yet been officially revealed.

LIU will close out the NEC regular season at home on Feb. 29 before it begins what it hopes will be a run toward its second NCAA tourney berth in three years under coach Derek Kellogg when the NEC Championships begin on March 4.

The LIU women’s team will have 16 dates at the Wellness Center this coming year, including the Nov. 5 season opener against Saint Peter’s.