A 20-year coaching veteran, Bennie Seltzer will be entering his third season on Porter Moser’s staff at Loyola in 2017-18. Before arriving at Loyola, Seltzer most recently served as the Director of Player Performance at Indiana.
"I have known Bennie for years, since we were both assistant coaches in the Big 12, and to bring in someone with his experience level has certainly helped our program,” Moser said. “Bennie has been around many successful teams, coaches and players. He was a Hall of Fame player in the Pac-12 and he is someone that our student-athletes can learn from and take advantage of his experiences."
During the 2016-17 season, Seltzer played a pivotal role in Loyola notching 18 wins, and recording victories over a Power 5 conference foe (Washington State) as well as perennial Mountain West contender San Diego State. His expertise in player development allowed do-everything guard Milton Doyle develop into Loyola’s first player to earn First Team All-Missouri Valley Conference recognition and Doyle also went on to earn an invitation to the prestigious Portsmouth Invitational Tournament. He finished his career with 1,606 points, which places him eighth on Loyola’s all-time scoring chart and he also ranks fifth with 459 assists. Doyle capped his career by becoming the first Rambler since 2007 to earn NABC First Team All-District recognition.
In addition to Doyle’s accolades, Aundre Jackson ranked among the national leaders and set a Loyola single-season record for field goal percentage (.669) en route to MVC Sixth Man of the Year, MVC All-Bench Team and MVC All-Newcomer Team accolades, while Donte Ingram blossomed into a Third Team All-MVC and MVC Most Improved Team honoree.
Off the court, Loyola student-athletes were lauded for their accomplishments in the classroom. In 2016-17, Clayton Custer and Ben Richardson were named MVC First Team Men’s Basketball Scholar-Athlete, making Loyola the only school with two first team selections. Loyola also posted a 99 percent Graduate Success Rate (GSR), a mark that tied with Harvard University as the highest in the nation.
In his first season on the Ramblers’ bench, Seltzer helped Loyola record a season series sweep of Northern Iowa as well as post a victory over Creighton in 2015-16. Montel James blossomed into a Second Team All-MVC performer and Loyola posted a win at Arch Madness for the third straight year before taking Wichita State down to the wire.
Seltzer began his coaching career in 1997, serving as an assistant coach for nine seasons under Kelvin Sampson at Oklahoma. The Sooners averaged 25 wins per season during his time in Norman and made eight NCAA Tournament trips, including runs to the Sweet 16 (1999), Elite Eight (2003) and Final Four (2002).
Seltzer then moved to Marquette in 2006, spending a pair of seasons on Tom Crean's coaching staff. The Golden Eagles made the NCAA Tournament in both seasons and Seltzer followed Crean to Indiana, where he was an assistant coach for four years. While in Bloomington, Seltzer was instrumental in recruiting some top-level talent to help the Hoosiers' rebuilding project, bringing in Victor Oladipo and Christian Watford among others as part of a group that would form the foundation of IU's 2012-13 squad that spent 10 weeks ranked No. 1 in the national poll and earned a No. 1 seed for the NCAA Tournament.
In 2012, Seltzer returned to his hometown of Birmingham, Ala. and was named the head coach at Samford University. He unquestionably raised the talent level during his two seasons there, seeing Tim Williams (2013) and Isaiah Williams (2014) earn Southern Conference Freshman of the Year honors, while Williams matured into a First Team All-SoCon pick his sophomore year. After his departure from Samford, Seltzer returned to Bloomington in January 2015 and served as Crean's Director of Player Performance for six months.
In addition to his collegiate experience, Seltzer was one of four court coaches for USA Basketball's national team trials in July 2004, conducting drills, coaching scrimmages and developing players for the group vying for spots on the 2004 USA World Championship for Young Men Qualifying Team. The eventual 12-man team went on to win the gold medal, winning all five of its games.
Seltzer entered the coaching profession after a successful playing career that began at Washington State and took him overseas upon graduation. He capped his WSU career by earning First Team All-Pac 10 honors as a senior and is still the school's all-time leader in assists while ranking sixth in scoring and steals and second in three-pointers made. In honor of his standout career, Seltzer was inducted into the Pac-12 Men's Basketball Hall of Honor in 2015. After leaving Pullman, Seltzer embarked on a four-year professional career that took him to Turkey, Venezuela, Poland and Holland.
He and his wife, DicQues, have two sons; Diamond (23) - who is a Private First Class in the U.S. Marine Corps - and Bennie III (16).
