Jim Cantamessa is entering his 12th season with the Pride, third as head coach, being named head coach in May 2019 after nine seasons as an assistant coach. In the final five seasons before taking the helm of Greensboro College's men's basketball team, Cantamessa was the associate head men's basketball coach.
Cantamessa has spent two years as the head coach, leading the Pride to 18 wins and a December 6, 2020 victory over Division I Longwood University. The Pride proved to be battle tested in the 2020-21 season, playing a near-full schedule amid the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic with the Pride leading the USA South's East Division in total games played. Cantamessa helped Greyson Collins earned All-USA South First Team honors in 2020-21, the first since the 2016-17 season when Donovan Griffith earned the honor from the league.
In his first year as head coach one year prior, the Pride posted a nine-win improvement in a stacked USA South East Division. Greensboro posted wins in four out of five contests as Cantamessa led the rebuilding of the program.
The Beaver Falls, Pa. native helped the Pride to five winning seasons as an assistant coach before taking over the program prior to the 2019-2020 season. Cantamessa was on the bench when the Pride posted back-to-back 18-win seasons in 2011-12 and again in 2012-13. Those records marked a six-win improvement for the Pride from his first season as an assistant coach to his second and led Greensboro to the USA South Athletic Conference Championship game in 2012.
Cantamessa is also the Pride's head men's golf coach where he has led the men's golf program to three NCAA Division III Men's Golf Championship appearances while competing against the toughest conference competition in all of Division III. In his five years at the helm of the men's golf team, the Pride has found themselves frequently in the national rankings as the Pride finished 2020-21 tenth in the Division III Bushnell Golfweek Coaches Poll.
Prior to Greensboro, Cantamessa played eight years (2000-08) of professional basketball in Europe. He played for teams in France, Germany, Portugal and Belgium. He was a Euro All-Star in '08, and was a member of a Belgian national championship team in '05.
Cantamessa attended Siena College where he played basketball for Coach Paul Hewitt and was the nation's leading three-point shooter in 1997. Cantamessa graduated from Siena with a degree in business finance in 2000.
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