RANGELY, Colo. (November 2, 2022) – There will be many new things about the Colorado Northwestern Community College Men's Basketball team in the 2022-23 season.
 
There will be new players; there will be a new schedule. Adding to the addition, there will also be a new head coach, as the Spartans announced the hire of Ben Cruickshank this week. Cruickshank, who is a former Snow College assistant coach, said Colorado Northwestern provided a great opportunity for him to continue his coaching career.
 
"I am excited to take on the challenge of building this program from the ground up," he said. 
 
Cruickshank has a long history of experience in college basketball, with coaching experience at Peru State College and Doane University. He played at Southeast Community College, leading the team to the 2008 NJCAA National Tournament, then finished his playing career at the University of Mary, where he helped the Marauders to a postseason berth.
 
There will always be excitement with both taking a new coaching job and in starting a new season, separately; however, there is a great deal of energy when combining both, according to Cruickshank.
 
"We are excited as a team to get this season underway," he said. "We know there will be challenges along the way as we have not been able to spend a full preseason together and we are all still getting to know each other, but we are excited to meet those challenges and take them on."
 
Part of the process of onboarding Cruickshank has been combining his learning about the team with the process of the team learning about his systems. The new Spartans coach said his team is managing the process well.
 
"I have been impressed by how enthusiastic the guys have been about trying to learn a new offensive and defensive system as quickly as possible," he said. "The team has a great work ethic and is getting better every day."
 
Looking ahead to the upcoming season, which starts this weekend a tournament hosted by Western Wyoming, Cruickshank said the goals for Colorado Northwestern are present in the minds of he and his roster.
 
"Our goal is to reach the region tournament, as only four teams in our league will make it and we want to be one of those four teams," he stated. "We will get to them by continuing to improve every single day."