BVB looks to win back-to-back PVAC titles
by Danny Charnoff and Sam Jacobson

Last year’s boys varsity basketball team enjoyed tremendous success, and captured the PVAC championship.

This season, the Lions have a new look, but are yet to live up to the standards set by last year’s team.

Due to the team’s success last year, returning players, such as senior forward Joel Schwarz, had high expectations for the current season.

“Once you win the championship, you can’t set your sights any lower than winning it again,” he said.

However, according to Athletic Director and ninth year Head Coach Victor Littman, the Lions may have underestimated the task of winning back-to-back titles.

“We have a decent number of returning players, so we took some things for granted. We expected to win automatically,” he said.

The Lions’ record, currently 10-3 overall and 7-3 in the PVAC, seems to show that they have lived up to their potential.

However, their three losses have been to key conference opponents, the Hebrew Academy Cougars and the St. Anselm’s Panthers and Washington International School Red Devils.

“I thought we would come out shooting blazing guns,” said junior center Jesse Bernstein-Ansaldi. He hypothesized becoming “undefeated for about the first 15 games. Obviously with the losses, I was wrong.”

The loss to conference rival Cougars was due to poor shooting and a rocky start, according to senior guard David Goott.

“We didn’t play that badly [later in the game], but it’s tough to recover from such a bad start,” he said.

According to Littman, the loss to title contender St. Anselm’s happened because the Lions never really found their game.

“We just seemed out of sync,” he said.

According to Goott, another factor that could have contributed to the loss was an injury to the team’s leading scorer, senior forward Gabi Weisel. Weisel stretched his Achilles tendon early in the game when a Panther fell on his leg. He was ineffective when he returned later.

The Lions’ most recent loss came at the hands of the Red Devils, who lost in last year’s PVAC championship game.

According to Assistant Coach Zak Stutman, the loss had to do with the other team’s height advantage and the Lions’ inability to get the ball inside. Washington International’s starting five doesn’t include a player under six feet, two inches..

“They’re a pretty big team,” said Stutman. “When we did [get the ball inside] we were getting our shots blocked. We thought our best way to beat them was to take threes, but they just didn’t fall for us.”

Despite their losses, the Lions are still in good position to win the PVAC regular season championship, which, according to Littman leaves the team with only “one tough game” as an obstacle to the championship. However, he is still unsatisfied with the team’s performance.

“Wins and losses are not usually a good barometer for how you play,” he said.

Last year’s championship may have made it difficult for the Lions to succeed this year. According to Bernstein-Ansaldi, they are now the team to beat.

“It made us top dog,” he said. “We have the mark on our back and people come in knowing that we were the champs, so they are trying to beat us.”

Additionally, the team’s success has led other teams to scout and pay more attention to its offensive sets.

“A lot of teams know our style now. We can’t shoot as many three pointers—we caught teams off guard last year. This year, they don’t let us take shots, and they know how to defend us,” Goott said.

Last year’s offense was based on perimeter shooting and guard play. According to Bernstein-Ansaldi, this year’s team is looking to move the ball closer to the hoop on a more consistent level.

“We choose to drive and work the ball inside a lot more,” he said. “It seems to be working for us.”

This change in offensive strategy had to do with the fact that the Lions “are a little bit better around the basket,” said Littman.

One way in which the Lions have improved in the paint has to do with the fact that the Lions added junior center Zach Rosenberg and the development of Bernstein-Ansaldi.

“I think that we have a different kind of big men,” said Schwarz. “Jesse and Zach are true centers. Last year we did not have a true center, we had power forwards.”
Schwarz added that another bonus to the team’s stronger inside game is that it allows for a balanced inside-outside offense.

It is good to pass inside because when you have the defense collapse, it will free up all our players outside to shoot. When a couple defenders collapse that means somebody is open,” Schwarz said.

Despite the fact that, according to Littman, the Lions have struggled to “put two halves together,” they are still hoping to repeat last year’s achievement.

The Lions are using their two conference losses as motivation for the rest of the season.

“Those losses were pretty big,” Schwarz said. “The expectations now are to come back and beat those teams and win all our other games.”