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Where I stand... I'll start by saying that despite the mess this season was and the no-show today in Harrisonburg, I don't feel like anyone should lose their job after the circumstances of this season. The fact we actually finished the season after three (!!) pauses is a credit to the players and the staff for keeping it together. But that's pretty much where my 'praise' ends. Let's start with Skerry. He's a great guy, very personable, changed the culture with Towson basketball especially academically, and I think he could be an asset as an assistant for a program. But let's face it, this program is bottoming out. The peak ended when we lost to W&M in the semis with Benimon and the second smaller peak was after we won in Belfast to start that season 11-1. Since then, we're 40-62 with 4 straight one-and-dones in the CAA Tournament. That's not continuing to build a program. That's having it infested with termites and mold and watching it fall apart. The reason for this is simple -- recruiting and scheme. Skerry has one way to play and that's defense and rebounding. Unless you're Michigan State or Virginia or Texas Tech (among others), you're not gonna get away with that philosophy with too much success for too long. The modern game has changed too much and we have failed to adapt. As a result, we have NOBODY who can reliably create their own shot and when we do have drive-and-kick situations, it leads to various clanks and clangs from the 3-point line. While Gibson and Timberlake are serviceable players, they are wildly inconsistent from a scoring standpoint. Would they start elsewhere? Highly doubtful. That's not to slight them. But to even an untrained basketball eye, they are not the players you build your team around. Let's look at the transfers that we've brought in -- Holland was a waste for this year and maybe altogether if he doesn't stick around. Allen was very meh. Victor didn't show all that much promise either. We sit in a very fertile HS basketball area between Maryland, DC, Northern Virginia, Philly, and Central Pennsylvania. Surely, we can get into the living rooms of players who are stars on their high school teams rather than taking players who are on nobody's D1 radar. We're a school that the expectation should be come March, they should be one of the three favorites to win the conference tournament EVERY YEAR. With the exception of maybe 2 of those Marchs, we haven't been able to say that. Hell, we're just hoping to stay out of the play-in game. More importantly, let's look at the transfers under Skerry. We've lost Four (grad transfer), Zane (should have never taken him back this year, which I said when it first happened), Gorham, and Betrand. I know there are others but these are the main ones I want to focus on. When you lose players like these, guys who were starters and key contributors, there has to be an underlying reason besides 'I want to play in a bigger conference'. And you look at what happened with Betrand last year with him torching Drexel in Philly and then going completely AWOL on the court the rest of the way, how does that occur? I suspect it all comes back to the leader of the program and the schemes involved. So, it's time for Skerry to be put on notice and if there isn't a significant improvement in 21-22, it's time to eat that buyout and find someone a little bit more dynamic who can inject some life into the program and whatever is left of the fanbase. I'm not gonna stop there. @Royal Tiger brings up a terrific point about the administration. Certainly, I don't even pretend to know the goings-on in the department but if a coaching change is made, I don't really think I want Tim Leonard making that hire. He has gotten women's basketball, women's lacrosse, and volleyball right and extending Nadelen on the men's lax side was the right move. But if you truly want to bolster this athletic department, you have to hit a home run with a hire in your two big-revenue sports. When fans return to games (hopefully next school year), what is going to give anyone any incentive to come to SECU? The athletic department has largely failed at getting people into the seats and it's truly pathetic that a state school with the enrollment that Towson has can't regularly get 60% capacity in a 6,000-seat arena. And before we start with the 'oh there's other stuff to do blah blah blah', go talk to some friends at Grand Canyon and ask them how they do it. I know I've harped about GCU before but their results both on the court and in the stands support my argument. If you can improve the product on the court, you will improve the attendance in the stands and the excitement within the program. But as Royal asked, do they even care? If they don't, then we might as well be Kennesaw State or Delaware State or Mississippi Valley State -- teams that put warm bodies in uniforms with the school name on it and trot them out to get slaughtered on a nightly basis. The title of this thread is 1,491 days. What it should be is 10,950 days....the length of time since we were in the NCAA Tournament. That's a little more than a week short of *30 YEARS*. I've tried to be patient and see the bright side of things because I know how tough it is in a one-bid league, especially with the amount of luck involved in the conference tournaments (look at what happened to both Vermont and UMBC today). But I'm sick and tired of getting to March and having virtually nothing more than a mathematical chance to win the conference and get our name called on Selection Sunday. It's time that this school shares my frustration and gets serious about its basketball program and makes significant improvements.

Agreed with just about everything that has been written on this thread. I completely agree on the point with the pathetic showings in the tournament, but that is not just Skerry (even though his winning pct. relative to seeding is the worst). I started as a freshman in 1993 and we have never made a conference tournament final in that stretch, and have only gone to five conference tournament semifinals in that timeframe (Truax - Big South semi against Liberty, 1993-94; Truax - NAC (America East) semi vs Drexel, 1996-97; Kennedy - CAA semis vs. George Mason, 2008-09; Skerry - CAA semis vs. William & Mary, 2013-14; and Skerry CAA semis vs. College of Charleston, 2016-17). We are 0-5 in conference semi games since 1992 when we won the ECC and didn't get an auto bid (another bad stroke of luck). We have lost those games by 5, 10, 8, 12 and 8 so it is not like they have come down to last possession (even though Liberty and Charleston were very close, and I thought I remembered us playing well against Mason in a losing effort). As much as we all rip Kennedy (and I do it more than most), he is the only coach since 1992 to win two conference tournament games in the same year. With all that being said about crappy tournament performances, I still care a lot more about our next coach putting us in position to be a top-three team in this watered down conference on a consistent basis and figuring things out from there. Skerry has done this at times, including last year. However, as much as I was an apologist for him last year, the predictability in style, failure in the conference tournament, transfer of too many players and being really crappy 2 of the last 3 season (I know COVID gives him somewhat of a pass, but the program has been heading this away since all of the transfer going the 2018-19) is too much to argue against. I think it has also been brought up that this AD is not the right person to make this hire. I completely agree with this. This has to start from the top down. I agree with whoever said we hate talking about people get fired and losing their jobs, and that was part of why I felt it was unfair to talk about Skerry like this last year when we went 12-6 in conference play. However, I like the rest of you am sick of no hope as a Towson fan. If this group (who I know are all great fans) feels like this, the amount of apathy outside of here is going to only make things worse in a tough financial program. Something needs to be done to get this on track, but obviously we are stuck in a situation where there are not many options. Mat, thanks for writing the player profiles piece, because that is really all we can focus on until we figure out some other things. It is depressing, but the players are really all we can change at this point and we can keep hoping someone impactful walks through the door and makes the situation better. That is the only way right now.

At this point transferring is really not much different than free-agency in pro sports except for the announcement of contract details.

Look, this post really drives home the point. In 9 years (remember, we weren’t CAA tournament eligible in Skerry’s 2nd season) EVERY other team in the conference, with the exception of Elon (which could end tonight) has at least made it to the conference title game. What’s more, we are DEAD LAST in this 9 year period as far as W’s in the conference tournament. Even with a pass for his 1st conference tournament appearance, the infamous 1 W season, we’re not talking a small sample size, but instead a clear pattern

Good post. The issue is, it is the same every year “let’s see how next year goes and judge, etc”. Another excuse from the current regime pops up. Transfers, injuries, Covid etc. Guess what every other team deals with that as well. How many more “next years” are we going to put up with? Who on this team is good enough to play significant minutes at a mid major? 32 probably. That’s about it. Talent and development isn’t there. Look at every other caa program and how the develop talent. It’s far better than what we have done. You can only get so far grinding out possessions and hoping for 5 offensive rebounds each trip. Pat is 134-132 since his first year..

I’ve been wishing, hoping, begging and praying for years that Skerry would just go out and recruit kids who’s strong suit was shooting, even if they’re not as adept on the defensive end. After years of waiting in vain, I’ve come to realize that it is hardwired into Skerry’s DNA to not recruit this type of player, as I believe he remains steadfast that he can win with defense and rebounding, even though his record of never winning either a regular season title or conference tournament clearly suggests otherwise. It’s like the Hofstra coach said after a game versus us in the 19-20 season; “they’re (meaning us) best offensive play is a missed shot.” If we know it, and the opposition knows it, it begs the question why Skerry doesn’t know it. I suspect he knows it, but refuses to adjust. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing, that doesn’t work, over & over, and expecting different results.

This might be the best Thread this site has seen at least as far as I can remember. This thread is not the knee jerk reactions of yet another game we just threw away, it is a collection of frustrations seeing the same bad movie season after season after season. I found myself nodding my head throughout this thread. Valid points that continually hit the nail on the head. As much as the way this game is played now annoys me even I will admit you have to adjust to the new way to play. We are in the age of positionless basketball where there is no 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 positions on the floor. As a lower mid-level conference we will never get an old school dominate post player anyway so why not just recurit shooters? Put 5 guards on the floor have 2 or 3 that can create their own shots and then a few others that just stand in the corner and drain threes? Now I know I am simlifing things put I think we all get the picture. I would have no issue with a "Three and D philosphy" Anything is better than what we are doing now. I never like or advocate for coaching changes as I never like to see anyone lose their job, but this cannot go on any longer. PS will probably keep his job this year but like Chris said in his post. PS needs to be put on notice and that cnversation should have been had before they even left the arena on Saturday.

Maybe Towson needs to shift it's focus from being a lax school to a women's volleyball school! The women have been outperforming the men for awhile now!

Found this on the UL Lafayette athletics site: Boosters are subject to some limitations on their contact with prospective student-athletes. One component of NCAA rules is that only the authorized coaches may recruit on behalf of the institution. This promotes competitive equity by ensuring that every program has the same number of people available to recruit for their program. Boosters are not permitted to recruit prospective student-athletes on behalf of the institution. So it would be a violation of NCAA rules for a booster to contact a prospective student-athlete by Twitter or Facebook to encourage them to attend UL. Likewise, it would be impermissible for a booster to set up a fan page in order to encourage a specific prospect to attend UL, such as a page entitled “Cajuns Fans Love Jake Prospect.” Because the institution is held responsible for the conduct of its boosters, doing so would require the University of Louisiana at Lafayette to self-report a violation of NCAA rules. It is not, however, impermissible for booster to follow a prospective student-athlete on Facebook or Twitter, as long as they are not reaching out to that recruit to in any way encourage them to attend UL. Boosters may not contact a prospect even if a prospective student-athlete invites people to contact him or her to advise them about what school to choose. Also, keep in mind that someone can be both a member of the media and a booster, depending on the context. As a member of the media, you would expect that someone would be seeking information, not pushing a particular agenda. So if a media member/booster contacted a prospect to say “I hear you are leaning towards UL, would you care to comment” that would be an appropriate contact by a member of the media. If that same individual sent a message saying, “I hear you are leaning towards UL, I think you would look great in Red and Black. Is it true?” that would be impermissible contact by a booster because they are encouraging the prospect to attend UL. It all depends on the context. So in answer to your question, it doesn't look like we can do that. Because I'm in the media AND I officiate two high school sports, I have to keep this in mind when I'm working games.

Not really. I'd be careful as an alum. You can follow them on Twitter or Instagram. I'm sure others try and influence players, but alums are really not supposed to "recruit" players.

That would likely depend on what is said, donations to the program etc. let’s be honest though, the ncaa isn’t coming around Towson basketball for violations anymore (this isn’t the Duane Coverdale days LOL)

We have fallen off way too quickly from our final 4 run. I gave him a pass last season due to covid but how have we not improved at all? We should never lose to Drexel (or honestly any caa game) in lacrosse.

The question I have for the numbskulls who made this decision (cough, Tim Leonard, cough) is what is the cost in dollars to have a moribund basketball program, no hope, no alumni engagement, just a worthless activity run by a failed regime. Whatever money is guaranteed to this guy is already wasted - there is no chance of success. If that is the only cost, then go ahead, let him run this program further into the ditch for 5 more years. But if it is worth anything to the institution to have a basketball team that brings alums together, provides a positive social activity for people based on their connection to the school then its high time to stop throwing away seasons and make a change. I'd love to care about Towson basketball again, but as long as the school doesn't care there is no point in anyone else investing their time or interest either. It won't happen, of course, because the Fordham playbook that dictates decisions these days says athletics are unimportant, a waste of resources, and simply an expense that must be managed to lowest possible number. It not whether you win or lose, but how much you paid to play the games.

Spring practice starts 12 March. There will be team scrimages every Saturday. Last day of Spring Practice is April 10th with a scrimage. As of right now, no spectators are allowed. If that changes, I will post here and let you all know