Think your commute to work is a bear?

By ERIC McHUGH

Depth is important. On the basketball court or in Mark Wentworth’s garage.

The Bentley College assistant coach is in the market for a second car. He’s not extravagant. He just needs a spare.

You would, too, if you spent as much time behind the wheel as he does.

Wentworth, who lives in the Abington house in which he grew up, said his pickup truck recently ‘‘bought the farm,’’ and the 2000 Nissan Maxima he’s tooling around in is rapidly approaching senility with 178,000 miles on it.

That’s what happens when your daily commute goes like this: from the South Shore to Hudson (he’s an assistant principal and math/science teacher at Hudson Catholic High School); from Hudson to Waltham, where he’s had a hand in turning Bentley into a Division 2 national powerhouse; and from Waltham back to Abington, with regular scouting/recruiting detours. Average, bare-bones day: 122 miles round trip.

Fifty years old and single - ‘‘I think I would have gotten the boot a long time ago’’ if he were married, he jokes - Wentworth estimates he logs about 40,000 miles a year. He drove 4,000 miles last month alone.

‘‘It has its moments,’’ he said. ‘‘I’m probably not a very good driver as far as being calm, but I think the drive sometimes gives you a chance to think about what you’re supposed to be doing for the day. Until the gas prices went up it wasn’t too bad. I beat the traffic most of the time in the morning, but it’s leave in the dark, get home in the dark usually.’’

‘‘We think he’s a little bit nuts,’’ fellow assistant Pat Durgin said with a laugh, ‘‘but that’s what he likes to do.’’Wentworth, who also coaches golf and girls softball at Hudson Catholic, is a part-timer at Bentley, but in his eight seasons with the Falcons, he’s made quite an impression.

‘‘He’s got a great mind for the game,’’ said Durgin, who played under Wentworth for three seasons starting in the 1999-2000. ‘‘He gets along (with everyone). My sophomore year was his first year. When he first got here, everyone was saying, ‘Who’s this guy they hired?’ Once you talk to him for five minutes you realize what a good guy he is and how loyal he is. He’s invaluable to this program.’’

Said head coach Jay Lawson, ‘‘He’s just a highly committed person who has a magical touch with any group that he’s involved with.’’

The commute can be a grind, but Wentworth likes both of his jobs too much to give either one up. It helps that Bentley has won 69 percent of its games during his tenure and is 23-0 this season.

‘‘I don’t know what it would be like if we didn’t win,’’ he said. ‘‘It would be a strange thing, I guess.’’