Lake Mills' AJ Bender commits to Minnesota State-Mankato

Lake Mills senior AJ Bender committed recently to play college basketball at Minnesota State University-Mankato.

Bender, a 6-foot-3 left-handed combo guard who is the L-Cats' all-time leading scorer, joins a Mavericks program fresh off an NCAA Division II Championship season in which they went 34-2 and won 16 straight games to finish the season.

Bender had Division I scholarship offers from Cal Poly and SIU-Edwardsville, plus interest from a handful of other DII schools.

Bender has scored 1,616 points in his three seasons playing a leading role for Lake Mills and is the school's career points per game leader (20.46). He's also averaged 6.67 rebounds and 4.31 assists per game in his career, earning first team all-conference honors three times while winning the conference Player of the Award last year.

Bender helped guide the L-Cats to a 23-4 record last season, a campaign that included an outright league championship and sectional semifinal appearance.

Lake Mills, which returns its four-leading scorers, has high hopes for the 2024-25 campaign, which gets underway Nov. 30 versus West De Pere at Beaver Dam High School.