Jesse DeLoof, head coach at NCAA Division III University of Pittsburgh at Bradford, will be the 15th head coach in Guilford College men’s basketball history, Director of Athletics Bill Foti announced Wednesday morning.

Jesse was head coach at Pitt-Bradford, his alma mater, the last five years and directed the Panthers to a 24-4 record, Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference championship and the second round of the Division III national tournament last season.

“I'm very pleased to welcome Jesse DeLoof to Guilford Athletics,” Bill said. “We had a tremendous amount of interest in this position and an abundance of highly qualified candidates. Coach DeLoof consistently stood out during every step of a very thorough search process. His complete transformation of the Pitt-Bradford program in such a short period of time was simply astounding. I am confident his ability to identify and recruit extremely talented student-athletes will translate into continued success for men's basketball in the ODAC.”

Jesse said he was "incredibly honored” to be the Quakers’ new coach. “I look forward to building on the program’s proud tradition and helping student-athletes succeed on and off the court,” he said, “and I am thrilled to join the Guilford community and call Greensboro home.”

At Pitt-Bradford he took over a program that won just a single game in 2019-20. He transformed the Panthers’ program, increasing their win total in each of his four campaigns, securing a winning record for the first time in a decade in 2024 before their big breakthrough in 2025.

Last season, Pitt-Bradford won the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference (AMCC) regular season and tournament for the first time since 2003. The Panthers set a program-record for wins in a season and a 14-2 mark in league play. They scored 103.1 points per game, the third-best average in Division III. They also ranked third in steals with 14.1 per contest, achieving that with a plus-8.0 turnover margin.

As a result, Jesse was named the conference's Coach of the Year, D3Hoops.com Region 7 Coach of the Year, and was a finalist for Hoop Dirt’s National Coach of the Year honor.

Making the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 22 years, the Panthers secured their first victory in national tournament play, beating The College of New Jersey in the first round before falling to Guilford’s ODAC rival, Hampden-Sydney College, in the second round in Virginia.

During his time at Pitt-Bradford, Jesse recruited, coached, and developed the 2025 AMCC Player of the Year, the 2023 AMCC Newcomer of the Year, a pair of 1,000-point scorers, one All-Region player and six All-AMCC honorees.

Jesse's first head coaching position came at Youngsville High School in Pennsylvania. His high school coaching career had a similar trajectory as his time at Pitt-Bradford. He took a two-win squad to 20 victories in a span of just two seasons, making the state tournament and winning regional Coach of the Year honors along the way.

Before taking over at Youngsville, he was an assistant coach at Pitt-Bradford. He is a 2013 graduate of the university, where he was a three-year starting point guard and two-time team captain, earning a degree in Sports Management.

Jesse succeeds Tom Palombo, who led the Guilford program for 22 seasons, posting 420 wins, three NCAA Division III Final Four appearances and five Old Dominion Athletic Conference championships.

He inherits a Guilford men’s basketball team that finished 22-7 in 2024-25, winning the ODAC Tournament and making the NCAAs but falling in the first round. The Quakers won 22 or more games each of the last three seasons with two NCAA Tournament berths.