Pat Lichtenstein is one half of a very small senior class for the Bard men's basketball team. Bard athletics photo

Bard College has been and is currently known for many things.

Walter Winchell, the great sensationalist of the 20th century, referred to the college as “the little Red whorehouse on the Hudson.” (Notice the capitalization of the word “Red.”) It has also been consistently ranked as one of the best liberal arts colleges in the nation. More recently, the school has garnered recognition because of its world-class performing arts center and concert series held at the Frank Gehry-designed Fisher Center, on the school’s campus in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.

The college has never been known for sports, especially not basketball, which I played at the school from 2001-03. The Bard men’s basketball team has a combined record of 79-353 over the last 20 seasons. There was a stretch, from 1992–2001 in which Bard won a total of 10 games in 10 seasons. In the last 24 years, the largest win total a Bard men’s basketball team has had is 11, in 2003-04.

The nearly .500 season (11-13) occurred when its current head coach, Adam Turner, was a sophomore. Turner and the Bard Raptors built on a relatively successful season the previous year, going 9-13, and took a couple steps up from 2001-02.

That was the year that former coach Greg Dixon applied a serious approach to basketball at Bard and the year that Turner decided he would come to play at the school.

So if anyone has a thorough understanding of Bard men’s basketball, it’s Turner.  He’s seen a somewhat deprived basketball program and athletically disinterested administration evolve and embrace the modern value of athletics at a liberal arts college.

Turner, reached by phone, explained the basketball and general advancements that have been made.

“I think the biggest change is just in the overall athletic department,” Turner said. “There have been an addition of nine new teams in the last seven years, so I think that that level of growth, athletically, has just impacted every program. There definitely is more of an athletic culture at Bard than what existed, honestly, just five years ago when I came back as the head coach. …

“So that’s been probably the biggest factor in terms of the growth of Bard athletics and Bard basketball. I think that from the beginning of this whole journey, 10-12 years ago ..., basketball is one of the first programs to really do things in a serious way.”

Turner graduated from Bard in 2006, with a bachelor’s degree in creative writing, and ended his Division III basketball career as the Raptors’ all-time leader in points, with 1,785.

He became the head man at Bard in 2009, after spending a season as an assistant in 2006-07, and was tasked with changing the culture. Like a lot of young coaches, Turner has brought energy, and tried to instill passion in his players. 

Guard Pat Lichtenstein, one of only two seniors on this year’s team, has witnessed the change in culture and is very much a product of Turner’s passion for the game and his commitment to the program’s direction.

“We take a very serious approach,” said Lichtenstein, a psychology major who plans to attend law school. “Coach reminds us all the time — we’re a D-III program, but we want to work like a D-I program. We take that focus and serious mindset into practice every day, into the offseason every day. Over my four years here it’s just really changed me individually and the team and the organization as a whole.”

One of the pieces to that change is the team motto — SCHAPE. The acronym stands for Spirit, Communication, Hustle, Approach, Precision and Enhancement-Energy. And if there’s any evidence of this credo having been applied, it’s Lichtenstein himself. Averaging 9 points, 4.7 rebounds and 1.7 assists this season, and a glue guy, he reiterated what Bard basketball is defined by. “You know — hard work, grit, hustle, energy — we play for each other.”

From a purely basketball standpoint, the team is in a better place than it was five years ago, but the records wouldn’t really show that. The Raptors haven’t won more than five games in a season during Turner’s tenure as head coach and haven’t won more than two conference games. Then again, they have transferred into tougher leagues during that span. In 2011, Bard moved from the Skyline Conference, which has members such as SUNY-Purchase and St. Joseph’s (L.I.),  into the Liberty League, which is a step up in competition.

One could say that Bard has moved too much, too quickly, without justifying those moves to the next level by establishing a successful formula or tradition. Yet, Turner would say that this is where they want to be — playing against the best in order to be the best.

“We’re one of the bottom teams in one of the best athletic leagues in Division III. When you get to the top of this league you’re a team that … normally has the ability to make runs in the NCAA Tournament. That’s kind of the final step.”

Aside from changing conferences, the other major factor in lack of record achievement has been the state of talent on the team. The Raptors have had some, like Lamar Powell, who averaged nearly 21 points per game last season and graduated in the spring. But the Raptors haven’t had a consistent collection of talented players to match the established teams in their league which certainly do have a barrage of capable basketball players. 

This season, however, the Raptors seem to have a balanced team with more weapons than in years past. They are headlined by freshman guard DeVahnte Mosley, averaging 21 points and 8.3 rebounds per game, and Sr. guard Siondueh Burnette contributing 12.3 points and 6 rebounds per game. Not to mention, Liberty League All-Rookie Team member, Alex Fabean-Scotch adding 7.7 points per game, and, of course, Lichtenstein. The Raptors also have bona fide size this year in 6-8 junior center Brandon Cunningham and 6-5 freshman forward Caleb LaRosa.

Schematically, Bard runs a read-based, two-guard (or spread) offense a la John Beilein’s at Michigan.  The players, as Turner emphasized, have to assess what openings exist and what opportunities might present themselves as a result of action — backdoor cuts, ball screens, pick-and-rolls and so on. In essence, players have to make decisions, which sounds about right for the cerebral students of Bard College. Such an offense also utilizes the game in its purest and, probably, most contemporary forms — a fusion of motion, with precision passing, and isolation.

“My coaching philosophy is that I love players to read the game,” Turner said. I love coaching them how to play the game. … We have a system that allows them to read the game and then there’s always a ‘what’s-next,’ so if they make a read and they have to backdoor cut, there’s a what’s-next action in our offense.”

So far the Raptors are 2-2, with a game today (11/25) against Hamilton, a former Liberty League foe. They will try not to fall into the trap (or maybe the reality) of playing well in the introductory, nonconference part of their season only to fall flat in conference play. It seems that the Raptors are much more tooled for the task this season. But basketball is a fickle game, in that any weaknesses a team has will be exploited immediately and there isn’t a way of masking those shortcomings, as in football, with team play or reactive schemes. Talent is and will always be the overriding determinant of the game.

Last year’s lack of progress in record boiled down to the Raptors losing most of their bigs at different parts of the season. And as any half-decent coach knows, lack of rebounding on both ends, lack of rim protection (or defensive deterrent) and lack of high percentage shot-making will turn any team into a bottom dweller.

It’s also a basketball fact that inefficient offense leads to poor defense, and then back again.  Bard certainly fell into that trap and plans to incorporate a different, somewhat more efficient element to its offense this year.

“… We’re definitely going to play up-tempo. We have a deep team. We have some really good players in transition. … It’s the easiest way to score when you can do it effectively. That’s kind of first and foremost,” Turner said.

In the end, no matter how much balance this year’s team has and how much it progresses, Turner knows, as does the athletic department, that the Raptors need more talent. They need to attract very capable and skilled players who also fit into to the Bard College community and can align themselves with the basketball program’s credo, built on character and passion.

Turner is the first to say how tough the task can be, especially when trying to determine which young man is and isn’t the right fit. If he had a personality test, he said, it would make things easier, but that is never the case. A coach has to know his program’s principles and do his or her best to gauge which players share them.

Bard College provides a very specific experience and, as a result, requires a specific type of student-athlete. Turner knows this person well because, at one point, he was that recruit.

“The biggest thing I can tell you is [we want] somebody who is looking for a unique place, where they can pursue they’re passion; [somebody] looking for an open environment to pursue passion. … We need kids who want to build their own brand, in a lot of ways,” he said.

“It’s funny, that’s why I came here when coach Dixon recruited me 13 years ago. And it’s funny that 13 years later that I can still recruit kids on that same premise.”

While Bard might be a long ways from claiming a spot among the giants of Division III basketball or soaring to the top of the Liberty League, at least now the program has the right and best person to take it there.

Looking ahead

For this week, the games of interest are those of one team — Williams men’s basketball. The perennial NCAA runner-up and recent New England Small College Athletic Conference second in command started the season 2-2 and thus behind the eight-ball when it comes to outpacing Amherst.

So, can the Ephs find an early-season groove in their next three games vs. Massachusetts College Tuesday night (a win), vs. Skidmore on Saturday and at Union on Sunday?

It’s a winnable stretch but a testy one, and the confidence and success of the team may depend on the results of it. The Ephs  lost a lot of talent from last season, including Duncan Robinson transferring to the University of Michigan and Mike Maker getting the head coaching job at Marist, and dropped out of the D3hoops.com Top 25 after losing to Southern Vermont and Oneonta State.