mat1992

https://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=487965 Towson falls at home in front of a record crowd of 4,322. The Tigers were brutal defensively in the first half and overall, falling down 10-2 and then compounded that by getting down 20 to start the second half. The Cougars shot a remarkable 15 of 22 from three-point range. Charleston improved to 13-3 and 22-7 on the season, while Towson fell to 10-6 in the CAA and 17-12 overall.

Charleston’s leading scorer is Ante Brzovic at 12.6ppg and they have three players averaging in double figures. The difference between us and them in that category is that they have six players averaging 8.2ppg to 12.6. Policelli, who had 17 today, is averaging just 8,9ppg on 35% shooting. I’d love to have him and I’m sure he’d put up more points with us but take the NIL and probable ring.

6-0 DB Jackson Small from Upper Marlboro https://x.com/jacksonsmall__/status/1761562974450278751?s=46&t=nScacl1TWT-KyOwj5stBaw

Tarke was supposed to be good defensively. He did earn MEAC All-Defensive team twice and led the nation in steals in one year. Maybe he's a little heavy and the fact that we don't press is a reason why he doesn't get as many steals per game (Coppin pressed and was 19th in tempo). But Tarke's defense isn't the big problem. It's his offense, his shot selection, his lack of passing when he started out like Jason Kidd, his lack of explosiveness, his lack of finishing, and his shooting. He's been banged up but I don't think he's had a serious injury. He just seems a lot slower than expected, again going back to lack of speed and athleticism overall on this team.

Students section was close to filled by the early part of the game. Not sure about the "autism solidarity" and how many people were there, but that's every year and we don't get 4,300 every year. Rip on the team all you want but the crowd was the only positive. Not sure you you turn that into a negative.

When Skerry said in the press conference, that we needed to win a rock fight type of game, what happened on Jan. 18? Tarke and May combined for 38. We did hold them to 39% FG shooting and 28% from beyond the arc. Seems like years ago. https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/game/_/gameId/401600673/towson-charleston

Scott is going to be special when he adds muscle. Rodgers I think has one year left. Had two years of juco and that was post-Covid season. I want to run as much as possible and not finish 359 in pace of play again. But I get the fact that our post players are slow. They can't run with Charleston. Every time we had a layup or fastbreak, unless we smoked the layup, they blocked it. And it wasn't just Scott. Ndefu and Embeya will help a lot, but we need to get some guards to help them out. We can talk more about that in the general thread, because it's that time of the year again.

Hard to say it better than that. We can beat Elon and Monmouth that way but to beat Charleston, Hofstra, Drexel on the road, and when Delaware shows up, we need to do more than just win a rock fight. We obviously need more talent, and part of that is a $$ issue. We're not getting Policelli and Tyler Thomas. We also have to be creative in terms of finding shooters from overseas or juco or D2, where you have to pay nothing or minimal NIL.

https://towsontigers.com/news/2024/2/24/mens-basketball-mens-basketball-falls-72-56-to-charleston-on-saturday.aspx First of all, I'll be the first to congratulate Charleston on the win and expected CAA title. They played the game the way it was meant to be played. Quick passing. The ball never stuck to somebody like glue. Their defense was fantastic in the first half, where we couldn't even get a clean shot off. To an extent, their 15-of-22 three-point shooting is not normally who they are (around 33% on the season), but when you start the game 10-2 and are getting layups, the confidence level goes up. You realize that one team is ready to play and the other one is not. They were focused on revenge and getting first place. Looks like that will be accomplished with ease. *I've been repeating myself over and over about length and athleticism. No offense to CP, but when he's going against James Scott, a 6-11 phenom, he doesn't have the foot quickness to overhelp on D and then get back and find Scott, who is mainly a dunker and shotblocker right now. Scary to see what Scott will be when he adds weight. *Skerry seemed resigned to the fact that we might end up in 5th or 6. Basically, we said we have the depth to overcome that, but our players are so freakin' inconsistent from game-to-game, we don't have the talent to overcome if a May or Tejada have off games and they did today. Tejada got just one shot up in the first half. He's a scorer though they took away all his drives and they are a bit predictable with his right. *Good job by the athletic dept. getting over 4,000 and breaking the record. Not much more to say about it. Seemed like they handled the crowds better but I got their very early. They were wanding people outside so that's a start. *The power forward/4 spot was horrible today. Can't finish in traffic, undersized and not athletic enough. Can't make perimeter shots. It was ugly and we can talk about this experience on another threat, going to those 6-5, 235+ pound old school power forwards, who can't guard the perimeter. I wish we had Frankie Policelli (6-9, 225), but guessing that is an NIL issue. Our post spots are not athletic enough and when we hedge, especially Paar, teams like Charleston that are good passing team, exploit our lack of quickness in the post. That's one of the many things that needs to be rectified next season. *Can we split next week? Sure. Can we win both games? Even if we do, it's hard to imagine that this team is good enough to win 3 or 4 games, if they wind up 5th or 6th. *Pete Shinnick said his team had little margin for error and we know why. Lack of talent esp. at QB position. Towson has little margin for error and you can also say we don't have a QB. We don't have somebody who can run the team although I thought it was a huge mistake to start Tarke and not Williamson in the second half. I know we probably lost by 12 instead of 16, but when it was 20 early on, it was over.

https://x.com/towson_mbb/status/1761096026860204075?s=46&t=nScacl1TWT-KyOwj5stBaw

More kudos https://www.insidelacrosse.com/article/men-s-di-roundup-towson-makes-a-statement-trounces-st-joe-s-for-third-straight/62669

Offer to a 6-4 300 pound DT from Virginia https://x.com/shimyael_holt/status/1761171758332207562?s=46&t=nScacl1TWT-KyOwj5stBaw

Five points from Mikey and Webber. Webber is so important as a set up guy. His speed is crucial for that first unit. You see what happens when they got the second unit and they are bigger but more lumbering. Either way, it’s fun watching this team again but huge test on Tuesday against Loyola

This offense is legit. Thought they got a little too cocky after the big lead and most of the penalties are due to lack of poise, especially on defense. Clearing was a mess at times. Part of that is due to few new pieces on defense. Loyola will be much tougher. https://x.com/towson_mlax/status/1761173575736631649?s=46&t=nScacl1TWT-KyOwj5stBaw

Meidling has been a fantastic player thus far on the wings.

My guess is at least 4,000 is likely so get there early if you have tickets

https://towsontigers.com/news/2024/2/22/mens-basketball-tejada-scores-30-points-towson-mens-basketball-downs-monmouth-80-61.aspx Freshman Tyler Tejada scored a career-high 30 points to lead the Tigers to an 80-61 victory over Monmouth before 1,910 at TU Arena. In their first meeting, Monmouth beat Towson 51-43 and this time, Towson had 44 points at the half. Mekhi Lowery did an outstanding job on Hawks' star guard Xander Rice, who was held to 4-17 shooting, though managed 16 points and three assists. With the win, Towson improved to 10-5 in the CAA and moved to a third-place tie with Drexel, who lost to 10-5 Hofstra tonight. Charleston improved to 12-3 and dropped Delaware to 9-6 after their 90-71 win.

We put 82 on them last time and put up 80 last night. We’re not built to run all day but I don’t believe in the theory that we have to win every game in a rock fight. We’re not going to hold that team to under 65 points. They actually shoot better on the road than at home. They were pretty bad on Monday night against William & Mary and scored their lowest point total all conference play …and they were at home.

Not sure there is one. Burnham (6-7, 220) is more physical but that's probably the best matchup. Policelli is more finesse but he can hopefully stay with him, but my guess is he guards Burnham and may guard Kobe Rodgers, who is a stud. I assume SulaiJones will defend Policelli, who is 6-9, 225. Burnham had 13 points on 5-of-14 shooting against us. I assume May saw action on him as well. Rayne Smith is somebody he'd have to chase around the perimeter and through screens. That's a pretty big frontcourt at 6-10, 6-9, 6-7. We're at 6-8, 6-7, 6-5ish. When Jones and Tejada walked out of the press room last night, Tyler did not look two inches taller than Messiah. Seemed more like 3-4, which means Jones is more like 6-5 and Tejada may be closer to 6-9. Another reason I see him as a 4 in the future or maybe a bulked up Lowery plays there.

So getting back on topic, I'd like to add one other late-season idea. Tejada needs to touch the ball nearly every possession and they need to run the offense through him. He's a freshman, but he's the most talented offensive player we have. Nobody else can post up, shoot the three (35.4%), put the ball on the floor and make FTs (82.3%) as well as him on this team. He had 8 points total against W&M/Hampton and then 29 against Elon/Delaware at home. He has had just two back-to-back double-digit games since non-conference play in December. But he's also played just 18 minutes per game over his last eight games. Does he have turnover problems occasionally? Yes. He had three awful ones against Hampton. Does he struggle on defense against smaller, quicker guards? Of course. He's 6-8, 220. But he needs to play close to 25mpg down the stretch assuming he's not crushing the team on defense. As he said after the game last night he was, to paraphrase, in his own head. That he was maybe thinking too much and being tentative on offense. He's a scorer. Not saying never pass the ball, but if he takes advantage of smaller opponents with his size and length. He might draw more attention and allow others to thrive.

5-8 RB 4.38 40 Eddie Love Jr. https://x.com/eddielove22/status/1760869846495924389?s=46&t=nScacl1TWT-KyOwj5stBaw

I don't want to continue to jump on certain players, but yes, 24 has been disappointing. His defense was not bad early tonight against Rice, but you see the difference in the second half when he gave up a 3 and Lowery came in and did Lowery things. I said it last season about that team. Not a enough length aside from Charles especially on the perimeter. Lowery just makes a huge difference. A few more lengthy guys would have helped, but I digress. Who knows what Tejada will do Saturday? He's not going to score 30, but we could use a big performance again from him and something offensive from Tarke/May. In that first meeting, May had 20 on 5-of-7 from 3pt and Tarke had 18 points, seven rebounds and five assists (7-16 FG0, 2-5 3pt). Tejada had six points and Williamson had 13. We had 82 points but could have had a little more had we not gone 12 of 22 from the line (Dylan 1 of 6).

Ok, no good bad and ugly. Mostly good tonight *Towson stayed in the race for the top four by winning easily tonight. As bad as the previous loss was, this is a pretty resilient team. *Tyler Tejada was fantastic tonight, going 10-of-15 from the field, 4-of-7 from beyond the arc, grabbing 6 boards. As good a game as a freshman that I've ever seen at Towson.. *Messiah Jones and Sulaiman combined for 17 points and 11 rebounds at the 4 spot *Outstanding defense in Xavier Rice, especially from Lowery (4-for-17). *Transition offense was pretty ugly with Tejada and May trying to run the break, but at least we're running more. *Some strange shots down the stretch with May launching an ill-advised shot with about 17 seconds on the shot clock under 4:00 left up 20. *Lowery, Tejada and Williamson all showed some potential for the present and future. Dylan hit 2 threes and they were needed considering he's been slumping some. Lowery's defense was at another level tonight as he got in Rice's head a bit where he had to resort to fakes and quick shots against him.

A late offer to a LB https://x.com/joepoinelli/status/1760786745082228760?s=46&t=nScacl1TWT-KyOwj5stBaw