mat1992

https://towsontigers.com/news/2021/1/17/towson-mens-basketball-continues-caa-homestand-vs-unc-wilmington.aspects

I don't think he's trying to recruit role players, but bottom line is that's what most of them turn into. Burwell was good as was Guthrie. Let's face it. Betrand was a talent. What happened there was more off-the-court than on, but he has talent. I wish it would have worked out because he could have been the guy this season.

Our little guy? Seriously? Why take it there? 2020-21 Zane scored 45 points against Buffalo and San Francisco. The next two games were abysmal. Something might have been wrong with him or his family. Not sure. But yes, in your critical world, he's terrible after two bad games. Hofstra lost at Delaware who had 7 players on Friday. Maybe seven scholarship players. I don't think Inglesby is that good, but that was probably the best conference win for any team considering their circumstances. But at least they have played games.

I didn't want to judge this team today. I really didn't. I didn't critique every play and possession like I normally do because it's not fair to the players, who barely know each other on the floor. You could tell Gibson has practiced once since Nov. 27. He looked rusty as hell. Now as far judging them after six games in two months, I would go with a couple of observations that I brought up in the chat" 1)Victor and Solomon. Solly shows flashes, but is not consistent. Victor just doesn't do it for me. I don't see the effort on the boards. He will block some shots, but he doesn't rebound in traffic. He gets pushed around in the paint. He doesn't really have the strength to go inside and post up. Solly does but he's 6-7, 230ish and is not going to dominate a player who is of similar size or bigger. 2)I will have patience with Mims. Playing Mims on Lewis early on was probably not the right move, but what are the options? Mims has the length and athletic ability to defend, but he hasn't played much since HS and it shows. He took a couple of horrific shots in the second half, after shooting it great in the first half. With Zane out and who knows how long, we need Mims to play at least 25 minutes. Timberlake is going to need to step up on both ends of the floor. Dottin had to play a lot today, because he was the only one who stayed with Lewis. 3)Loss of Gray hurts us defensively. Solly and Bieku basically played power forward today. I don't think Solly is in the right position at times and struggles to defend shooters. Thompson slid in there with Victor. They have no stretch 4 and not say Gray was good as a shooter, but he could occasionally make 3s and he was a leader defensively. 4)To run or not to run? I'm always pushing them to run more and push the pace, but when you turn the ball over at a drop of a hat, it's tough to say run it after every miss. Dottin just doesn't make the right decisions half the time. When he puts his head down, there's a 75% chance he's going to run over someone. Allen seems to be a scoring point guard who doesn't set up people well and Gibby isn't right at the moment. He doesn't have his legs back. I do worry about him defensively. That's probably why they brought in two point guards next season, to move him to the 2. But I do think at some point, it's time to turn them loose and get Mims and Timberlake on the break. That is their strength. 5)I don't care if people give up on this program in the middle of a pandemic. I won't. They are tough to watch, but that was actually a better effort than when they played Coppin State and beat them. There have been recruiting mistakes. I don't disagree with that. Victor? He's a 7-footer who doesn't like to mix it up? Mims? Too early to tell. Allen? Not a fan. Gibson? He has shown promise. You can't judge him this season considering he's barely played and practiced. Bieku and Jones too early to tell. Timberlake has been fine. Wasn't heavily-recruited. But you can't rely on him as your number one or number two scorer. He just doesn't shoot well enough and still has that hitch in his mid-range jumper. Dottin? No. CT? Not bad. No range on offense and needs to be better on boards. He does have a motor on the offensive boars. But bottom line is these guys are role players. Mims could be a really nice player but don't see it with anybody else. There no Brian Fobbs at the moment and the hope of course, was that would be Zane, but he's not here. I think Pat knocked it out of the park with the recruitment of Fobbs. He needs to find at least two players like that every year as freshmen or transfers. 6)Even if it's bad basketball, I'm glad we're playing something. I've been covering this program every year since 1989. I'm not asking for sympathy, but it feels close to normal to be out there, even without the band and 1,500+ fans. We've been crushed by COVID-19 as bad as anyone in the CAA along with our women's program. Crushed. Today, Coach Richardson came out that she was dealing with it. She's over 60 so I certainly wish her the best and hope she gets back on the court soon. I love this program and will continue to support it in my own way (financially as well) until I can't physically do it anymore.

Are you going to buy him out? And did you really think they were going to win a game after playing 2 games in 50 days without their best player(s)? But sure, I'm giving excuses. I'm just smooching Pat's butt. I'm sure that JMU would be great without Matt Lewis. I do like Byington though. At least he's an improvement. https://www.wmar2news.com/sports/towson-university-head-mens-basketball-coach-agree-to-8-year-contract-extension-#:~:text=Facebook-,Towson University %26 head men's basketball coach Pat Skerry,to 8-year contract extension&text=Towson University and head men's,is for another eight years.

True, they are doing great now.

Quotes from the Zoom Conference and yes, Zane Martin missed the game due to "personal reasons". Kansas State/Texas BYU/San Fran BC/Notre Dame Skerry opening comment "The two big things in our scouting report. One was obviously Matt Lewis. He was the Preseason Player of the Year. He just destroyed us. Hard to beat anybody when he gets 30. We wanted to keep him off the foul line, which we did, but he got it going. We didn't do a good job of running him off the line. Our other big key was not commit live ball turnovers, which we did. I thought our guys played hard. We have a lot of work to do. They were sharp. Matt Lewis was sensational. He looked like an NBA player today." On first game since Dec. 26 "Guys appreciate the opportunity to play again. This was our third game in 50 days and our 12th practice. That's not a great formula to get rhythm we've learned. This is a different year. We have to try and get better. And test negative, so we can get a rhythm. We're going to try and play as many games as possible. We need to try and deal with it." On Lewis The way he shot the ball. Made nine threes. Usually we're a good defensive team. He just stuck shot after shot. We talked about running him off the line and contesting better. He still has to make the shot. He was sensational. Make shots like that, you can make a lot of money. On Zane "It's personal. That's all it is. I would never talk about something personal. We had to adjust on the fly." On turnovers "I get all that stuff. I still think we're capable of getting better. Yes, we haven't practiced much and all that good stuff. It's good to get Gibson back out there. Yesterday was his first practice since Nov. 27. He'll get his legs back and under him. We have a high standard for our group. We're not looking to talk about how many practices we had. When the ball goes up, we have to be ready. I told the guys that we play another tough team on Monday and if the kid (Jaylen) Sims puts up 30 and we commit 19 turnovers, we're not quite committed to having success or we're not good enough. That's the fun part is how do we go back and get better. Hopefully, we have enough guys on the floor to accomplish that." On second half defense and rebounding "We got it to seven and then we give up an offensive rebound. We were +9 on the glass, which is good. A couple of untimely rebounds we gave up and untimely turnovers. They made us pay. We're not there yet, but they have a good club. Lewis was a major difference-maker.

http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=325718 https://towsontigers.com/news/2021/1/16/career-high-16-points-for-mims-not-enough-in-towson-mens-basketball-caa-opener-vs-jmu.aspx

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I’ll be chatting from SECU

I’m guessing this decision was made well before that happened on Jan. 5.

Was a safety at 6-3 190 but has 4.41 speed and ran track at UVA. Wonder if they move him to receiver