At the end of his recruiting visit to Barton, Tim Black recalls that men’s basketball coach Ron Lievense sat him down in the Dunn Hall of Fame Room and said, “Tim, if you come here, you have a really good chance to be in this room.”
Lievense’s premonition from 16 years ago came true when Black was inducted into the 2015 Barton College Athletic Hall of Fame.
For many coaches, that speech might have been just a hollow sales pitch, but Lievense truly believed what he said. He saw something special in what was then a skinny point guard from Mechanicsville, Va.
“He had a number of bigger schools looking at him, but when he was coming out of high school he was 140 pounds soaking wet,” Lievense said. “But I’ve always been the type of coach that did not look as much at the outside as the inside of a player. The inside of him – the work ethic, the character traits, the commitment to become better – as well as the fact that he was a very, very good basketball player, told me this was a guy we have to have.”
Black was grateful that Lievense appreciated him for who he was and passed on his desire to play under the bright lights of the NCAA Division I stage.
“After high school, I really wanted to go to a big school, play in the NCAA Tournament on TV and all of that,” Black said. “It just wasn’t meant to be. Everybody always questioned my size. But Coach Lievense brought me in and said, ‘I just care about your basketball, your passion and your heart. You have what we want.’ After hearing that – that someone cared about me and my positives, not my negatives – I was sold on the experience.”
Black made an immediate impact, averaging nearly 13 points, four assists and two steals per contest in earning Carolinas-Virginia Athletics Conference Freshman of the Year honors. He continued to improve each year, tossing in nearly 15 points per game his sophomore season and better than 16.5 points per contest during an all-conference junior campaign that earned him Barton’s Kiwanis Male Athlete of the Year award.
His game exploded as a senior, when he led the Bulldogs to a 22-6 record, the school’s second NCAA Division II Tournament appearance and its first DII tournament victory, an 80-76 overtime win over Alderson-Broaddus in the 2003 East Regionals.
“The NCAA Tournament was something everybody works towards, and we had always been close, always had good teams there,” Black said. “But my senior year we actually made it and won our first game. It was heartbreaking when we lost because we were such a great team, but getting there and seeing the bonds that it formed between all of our teammates, appreciating how we stuck together and got something accomplished, that was probably my favorite memory from Barton.”
Black poured in 25.5 points per game that season while also pulling down 5.8 rebounds, dishing out 3.6 assists and collecting 2.4 steals per contest. He was named the league’s Player of the Year and was chosen to the East Regional All-Tournament Team. His standout season was capped with his selection as Barton’s first NCAA Division II All-American in men’s basketball.
He completed his standout career as the second-leading scorer in Barton history with 1,836 points, and in 2007 was one of just 10 players from the league’s CVAC era chosen to the All-Time Men’s Basketball Team.
“Tim had one of the best pull-up jump shots you’ve ever seen. He could stop on a dime and pull that jump shot,” Lievense said. “But the biggest thing about Tim was his competitiveness, work ethic and integrity. He was just well out in front in those areas.
“I’m very proud of the career he had here. But more than anything, I’m proud of the person that he became – how he handled himself here on campus, how he handled his teammates, how he treated his professors. He is just a tremendous young man of character and integrity.”
After such a successful collegiate career, Black wanted to continue playing basketball at the next level, but he again faced the same obstacles he had been forced to overcome entering college.
Black thought he had a verbal agreement to play professionally with a team in Cyprus, but the deal fell through and he spent an anxious summer in 2003 wondering whether he would get an opportunity.
He finally did when the general manager of a team in Germany asked a coach with whom he had connections in New York if he knew of a good point guard. That coach had played against Barton in a tournament in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, and said Black was the best he had faced.
“Once I got over there, it was about proving myself,” he said. “I had a two- or three-week tryout, played lots of games and went through a lot of practices. They liked what they saw and wanted to sign me. At that point, I didn’t have an agent, so it pretty much about me marketing myself and letting my game speak for me.”
That chance was all Black needed. He not only landed a job, but in 2003-04 he led the German 2nd Division in scoring at 32.9 points per game while playing for the the NVV Lions Mönchengladbach.
That season kick-started an 11-year professional career in Germany, Belgium and Italy that included a league MVP award in 2006 after leading the Paderborn Baskets to a championship, a German All Star Game appearance and another league scoring title in 2008, and selection to multiple all-pro teams, including First Team All-Belgium as recently as 2012. Even in his final pro season last year, Black led his Italian league in free throw percentage.
“Having reached the end of my playing career, being selected to the Barton Hall of Fame kind of brings it all back into perspective,” Black said. “From the moment I picked up a basketball until now, to know that I accomplished something. I had goals that I set all along the way, and most of them I accomplished. Some of them I didn’t, but that’s the game of basketball.”
