As basketball season approaches, Landmark College anticipates a fresh start to a new stint on the court. After a 5-6 season last year, the most wins the college has seen in at least 3 seasons, and many new changes involving out of season practice, new jerseys, new recruits, and a potentially bigger schedule, and even postgame interviews, there is a newfound optimism surrounding the team. From players, coaches and fans, there is a general sense that this year’s team is different than years past.
When asked about how the team is going to do this year, second year player Sal Dkaidek, “pretty good, I guess, like, I can’t tell by the other teams, but I guess it depends on us.” So, there is an expectation in the locker room that they will improve and build on their success last year that resulted in a record just 1 game below .500. When asked about personal goals for the season Sal has a goal to “dunk the ball” and “improve from last season”
According to Sal, the main changes he has seen in his time on the team include the players, seeing a lot of new talent come in, where instead of seeing guys learning the game, they can teach the game to others, leading to new perspectives. He also said it helps that “we’re more, understanding, like, how we can beat the previous guys we faced last year.”
Head Coach Marc Thurman also expressed excitement about the future of the team “I see is getting the team back to be able to one day, play in the conference, and if that is possibly one day, a, D3, that would be great,” said Thurman. Coach Thurman also anticipates a high ceiling with the team stating, “the team can go undefeated at home. I believe the team can win every home game.”. Thurman continued, “That’s the first start that’s going to build momentum to win on the road” which is expressing a degree of confidence that we haven’t seen in a very long time in the team locker room.
Coach Thurman has also been at the forefront of the many changes in the first few years of his young coaching career, including new uniforms, and practice routines. “We knew basketball jerseys was needed, in season, out of season practices, and treat each athlete like a college basketball athlete,” Thurman stated. These are some of the main changes the program has seen in the past couple of years and are just some of steps needed to bring the team back to where it was in the early 2000s, where the team was competing in a D3 conference and even won a title in 2001.
There have also been discussions of bringing an intercollegiate basketball tournament to Landmark College, a plan initially proposed by late head coach John Wood, t “We want to end the season off with a tournament. So, we still plan on doing that. We have some good contacts with schools that we play again. So, we want to do at least a three to four team tournament,” said Thurman. This means that Landmark College may potentially see postseason action this year if this plan comes to fruition.
One difference noted by third year Landmark basketball player, Liam Mulholland, is the “faces” on the team, attributing the change to the large player turnover over the past couple of years. Mulholland also observed increased expectations from the coaching staff, saying “I think the expectation is for us to try our hardest. Last year coming off the shakeup of Marc becoming the head coach, there wasn’t really an expectation. It was just trying to figure things out, and now that the foundation has been laid out more clearly, It’s time to really turn up the heat”
Liam attributes the difference in attitude to Thurman’s personality. ” When he enters a room, people listen,” observed Mulholland. Players respecting the leaders and buying in has been an issue and the past, so it is great to see it this new change in perspective.
While the Men’s basketball schedule for the 24-25 season hasn’t been released yet, it is expected that the schedule will look very similar to last year including two games vs Hampshire College, Albany School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, one game vs Rhode Island School of Design, Culinary Institute of America, and Word of Life Bible institute, with an expected total of 11-15 games including Landmark’s annual Shark Day exhibition game. The 2024-25 schedule can be found here.
The new season for Landmark basketball is less than a month away, with the first of what is expected to be at least a dozen games set to tip off in late October or early November. Players and coaches within the team believe that this year’s squad has a chance to be a winning team for the first time in at least four years and give the fans at Landmark something to look forward to this season.
