ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. - With 40 percent of the season gone and the league schedule just under way, the 2012-13 version of Bard College men's basketball had established at least one thing is does pretty well.

The Raptors don't make it easy for other teams to score.

But Vassar came to town on Tuesday night, and the Brewers - for most of the night, anyway - beat Bard at its own game. The Brewers pushed, prodded, poked, bumped and disrupted the Bard offense and made it hard for the Raptors to even get a good look at the basket. Bard entered the game with great defensive pride, but a nine-minute scoreless stretch in the first half and a 25-17 deficit at halftime definitely brought them back to Earth.

It continued in the second half, and all looked lost as the 10-minute mark approached and the Raptors were still down by 10 and with only 25 points on their side of the scoreboard.

Then things changed.

Bard began to rally offensively, and then picked it up defensively, and the result was an amazing comeback with a 15-3 run over the final 5:41 to pull out a 47-43 victory.

Box score

The rally started when sophomore Chris McNaughton hit a three-pointer with just over 10 minutes left to cut Vassar's lead to seven. With seven minutes to go, Siondueh Burnette made a layup to make the deficit 37-32. Vassar pushed the lead back to eight, but a nice move inside and a layup by Berk Atuk, and another McNaughton three-pointer made it 42-39 Vassar with 4:15 left. The large crowd was into it, and the Stevenson Athletic Center gymnasium was getting pretty loud.

A jumper by Lamar Powell, then a layup by Burnette gave Bard a lead with 2:01 left, but Vassar sophomore Alex Snyder (Rutland, VT) tied it at 43-43 with a free throw at the 1:19 mark. A baseline jumper from Burnette broke the deadlock with 58 seconds left, and Ben Kane hit two free throws with 30 seconds left to provide the winning margin.

Over the final five minutes, Vassar went 0-for-7 from the field and turned the ball over three times, giving Bard the opportunity it needed to complete a memorable comeback.

There's some history here, too. Prior to last season, when Bard joined the Liberty League, Vassar had beaten Bard a dozen straight times between 1995 and 2010. But last year, Bard stunned Vassar by two in Poughkeepsie, then by one in Annandale. So it's three in a row over Vassar for Bard, by a total of seven points. They'll meet again at Vassar on Jan. 29.

Vassar (4-6 overall, 0-1 Liberty League) got 12 points from junior Evan Carberry (Metuchen, NJ) and six points and 10 rebounds from Snyder.

Burnette led Bard with 17 points and eight rebounds, McNaughton and Powell added eight apiece, and Frank Stortini added four points, eight rebounds and two steals, including a crucial theft with 2:18 left in a tie game.

Up next for Bard is a trip North. The Raptors will play at Clarkson University on Friday at 8 p.m., then at St. Lawrence University on Saturday at 2 p.m.