Tiger93

I would rephrase this to say no one has confidence this team can win 3 in 3. I definitely think they can, but right now the one team that is hard to see us beating is Charleston. I am confident that we can beat any of the other teams any time and anywhere. However, we also have time find a way get to the tournament healthy (which we didn't last year, and obviously healthy excludes Jason Gibson at this point who I am just guessing won't be back) and not be wound so tightly in pressure spots (which is the one part where I think I am alignment with everyone who bashes Skerry). Also, I have a mental block when it comes to this program and actually getting to a conference final because since I stepped foot on campus in 1993 it has not happened. This is not a Pat Skerry or a this year's team thing, it is more of a viewpoint of having seen 6-7 different years where I thought we had a chance and coming up short.

Probably too early to say this, but it feels like the last two hires (obviously mostly Coach Richardson) really raised the standard of women's basketball program. Great to see Coach Harper get some good momentum after a tough conference start.

I didn't get to see any of the game last night, but great to see Russell and Sylla combine for 33 points, 10 rebounds and 13-22 from the field. I think this team might finally be turning the corner in terms of understanding that the only way they can be a top level team in the conference is for everyone to fill their roles, and to have distributed shot selection unless it is one of those random games where Timberlake catches fire. I have definitely appreciated the consistency that Russell has brought to this team on a game in and game out basis. His shot isn't great, but the effort is always there and I feel like he does something to contribute every game. He isn't even close to one of the best players on the team, but he seems even-keeled and very reliable. Off the topic of our game, does anyone know how Monmouth was leading Charleston at halftime. Also looked like Hampton hung with Drexel, which I guess isn't totally surprising. The more I see some of these weird scores, the more it reinforces that we need to take each game one at a time and make sure we should up for some of the weird games.

I am mostly kidding, but we probably could have started the guys at the end of the bench and gotten away with against Monmouth with how bad they were.

For some reason last year and this year Hofstra seems to bring out the best in Towson. This was a game we had to have to even consider ourselves among the top teams in the conference and as Skerry said it was probably our best performance since UMass. I feel like this was the first time all year I have seen Cam happy and bringing really good energy to the game. If he is in this state of mind, and these guys and can keep figuring out how to play with each other I do think this is can still be a highly successful conference season. I think the William & Mary win over UNC-Wilmington also gave us a glimpse that second place in the conference is up for grabs between several teams. I really loved how the team dug in defensively against Hofstra after falling behind 13-3. Towson gave up 13 points in the first 4:20 of the game and 34 points over the next 35:40. It was the lowest point total by Hofstra this year, beating the 48 that they were held to against St. Mary's. it was also their lowest point total since 2019 in a game. Part of it was that they were ice cold, but I also thought particularly from about the 15 to 5 minute mark in the first half Towson was flying around on offense, and it felt like whoever was on the court brought that intensity. As Skerry has said, this needs to be out identity the rest of the year. I have seen a lot of praise for Russell and I completely agree. He has been the steadiest (not best) player on the court all year. His effort never waves, even when his shot does. It was good to see Cam be more decisive on offense. I know he is going to make some bad decisions from time to time, but as long as he is decisive I think we can live with this. What was tough when they were struggling was he seemed to be having a crisis confidence and indecision was causing bad play. All around a great team game, and the way I want to see this team bring it on a nightly basis win or lose (easier said then done). Now, we have to bring that same effort on Thursday in what feels like it could be a trap game. NC A&T is third in points per game and three-point percentage in conference games. If we don't bring that same intensity on Thursday, this could easily be a lose. Very encouraged by yesterday's effort, and hoping it leads to a good winning streak. With road games against NC A&T and Elon, and home games against Northeastern and William & Mary, we should be favorites in our next four games before the rematch with Hofstra. This will be a test of whether this team has found itself and can be consistent, or if we continue on the roller coaster ride this season has been at times.

That is correct from what I can tell.

Certainly can never take anything for granted, but a loss at home to Monmouth would be rock bottom. Delaware State an Monmouth have the lowest win totals in D-1 with one victory. Delaware State is 1-14 while Monmouth is 1-16. To go with the bad teams in the CAA conversation, there are 13 teams in the Division 1 with 3 wins or less and three of them exist in the CAA. Here is the list: Monmouth (1-16, CAA) Delaware State (1-14, MEAC) Green Bay (2-16, Horizon) Mississippi Valley State (2-16, SWAC) Elon (2-15, CAA) Louisville (2-15, ACC) LIU (2-14, NEC) Florida A&M (2-11, SWAC) IUPUI (3-15, Horizon) South Carolina State (3-15, MEAC) California (3-14, Pac 12) Hampton (3-14, CAA) Cal State Northridge (3-13, Big West) With all of the D2/D3 teams making solid transitions it really makes me think that promotion/relegation would be perfect for college sports. Anyways, Monmouth has lost its four conference games by an average of 19.8 ppg and the two road games by an average of 26 ppg. This really needs to be a double-digit win for Towson.

Yeah, I enjoyed him as a professor because he wouldn't let you be comfortable thinking your own opinion was right. No matter what you thought about anything he would challenge you to think deeper about it and make you back it up with facts and good reasoning. We all think we are right about everything when we are in college (or on a message board 😀). It was good to have someone make you wrap your head around another perspective and challenge your own thinking. I definitely appreciated his teaching style.

Dr. David Zang is I think who you were talking about. I had him as well as part of my Sports Management track. I was there from 1993-97. The Shepherd Pratt incident and the Louisville win are definitely things that resonate from my time there, as do the movies you are talking about. They also had cheap movies at the theater by Pizzeria Unos midway between campus and the Towsontown mall (I can't remember if they were 10 pm or midnight) that were cheap movies that were on there way out of the theater (I actually worked at that theater at one point). My friend was the sports anchor for TSTV, and I worked with him and one of the other posters on this board from the America East Basketball Tournament in 1996 where we interviewed Jay Wright (Hofstra), Mike Brey (Delaware) and all of the other coaches. We also covered the Towson-Drexel semifinal in 1995, which I still believe to this day ranks as one of the more talented, yet once-gain disappointing, Towson teams since I have followed the program.

One thing to me that was evident is we really never found someone who could give us what Nolan Jr. did last year. He was experienced, didn't turn it over much, moved the ball around, and while he wasn't a go-to offensive option he could catch fire enough to do damage. There were some games last year where the ball moved on offense like I had never seen it move before at Towson. The shot distribution was spread out evenly, and even though we didn't have a go-to player we had a lot of very good options. In my mind, this made Thompson and Timberlake look better than they are. They are both really good role players, but we saw in 2020 that when asked to be focal points of the offense it is a little beyond their capabilities. What was great last year is when Timberlake caught fire or Thompson took over inside, it was in addition to other good things going on. Now it feels like even when Timberlake gets hot that is it. Same thing when Thompson does well. We have no diversity in our offense, and when we play good teams we have long droughts where we miss shots, and then do dumb things because we get frustrated. It is so easy to gameplan for offense, because there is just not much we can do. The only positives from the last few games is that we are not just rolling over in these games like we did against Navy, Northern Iowa and Bryant. That is a small consolation, because there are certain opponents on the road where we just aren't good enough talent wise. I do think Nygal Russel has been a suitable replacement for Rizzuto (probably a better all-around player, but not as good a shooter). I will also repeat that other than the return of players who probably aren't coming back, Christian May's development is the one tangible thing that can make this team better over the next month or so. However, that jump is probably not enough for any notable improvement overall. We don't have a true scorer and Timberlake is probably the only plus shooter on the court that can come close to getting his own show. Conway is a good shooter, but he needs the team offense to get him open to be effective. As others have said, right now we are probably behind the pecking order of Charleston, UNC-Wilmington, Delaware and Hofstra. If Hofstra comes in and beats us on Monday, that will be a pretty definitive statement that we are a full tier below those teams. If we can win that came at least we can hold out hope of trying to piece wins together against Delaware at home and maxing out as a 4-5 seed. Of course, that is way, way, way below the expectations we all had for this team.

I get the criticism on Skerry, but could you let the AD be here for more than one year before you lump him in with all of the frustrations. I am not saying he will be a savior of any type, but give him at least 1.5-2 years before you say he is doing the same thing. I think we are all frustrated by this hoops season. It has been very disappointing on a number of levels.

I don't think it would have been that different. VCU was on fire for one year as was George Mason, but I don't think they do that much even in the A-10. Outside of the major conferences I don't think many college basketball games do very high ratings. I hate that, because I want to believe a lot of people love the sport as much I (and assume I can saw we here) do. The ratings just don't back it up. The old, current and/or new CAA doesn't really draw ratings any way you cut it. However, making it hard for people like us to watch it is very stupid in my opinion. I don't know who else they think they will get to watch outside family and diehards like all of us.

The one thing that has been discussed in the past is despite the fact that ESPN+ would be better in a lot of ways it sounds like the conference actually gets a decent amount more money from the FloSports/CBS Sports Network set up. I don't know how to balance those two things. While I wish the league would be forward thinking and not just go to ESPN+ because everyone else does, as a fan it seems like an incredibly easy way to give us air time to watch the team. Outside of college basketball, I find the MLS deal with Apple TV to be creative and forward-thinking. Of course, it could also completely fail. I wonder what a good, creative media contract looks like for a mid-major basketball conference (if any such opportunity even exists). FloSports is definitely different than what most conferences do, but I just hate the price point and that there is really nothing else on the platform I really want to watch. Streaming definitely gives people a lot of options, but it also shows a lot of products how few people care about it when it is left on its own as something people should pay for without having accompanying programming that draws people to it. ESPN+ is the safe option from this perspective, because (at least from my standpoint) you aren't just buying it for CAA sports.

Thanks for sharing. I am loosely attached to the industry and understand the difficulties of doing this. What I don't totally understand is the CAA contract since it gets the table scraps and probably doesn't get to pick dates and times like bigger conferences do. One of the things that seems weird to me is that this game wouldn't have just been put on Thursday where the Drexel-Stony Brook game is tomorrow at the beginning of the year. At worst, UNC-W-College of Charleston was going to be a top four matchup, and they both as has been mentioned before have pretty good environments. Of course if you chose in the offseason, Towson-Delaware might have been attractive too. What I am getting at is all of the games are on Wednesday in the midweek except for one (Drexel-Stony Brook), and that is on TV. It feels like the league could work with its best teams to get on as many of those broadcasts as possible. Where I am unfamiliar with the contract is representation of other teams, days teams want to be locked into because of schedule conflicts, and other factors. I know you can't just move a game to be nationally televised the week of it when you are in a conference likes ours, but you can think pretty intentionally about where to put it when you are doing the initial schedule. However, I do realize that sounds easier than it is. Here is the full schedule for CBS Sports Network, and it does appear that everyone is on at least once (which is often the case in these contracts). That obviously complicates what you can do with the full schedule. The breakdown of appearances is Charleston (3), Delaware (3), Hofstra (3), Towson (3), UNC-W (3), Drexel (2), Monmouth (2), Northeastern (2), Stony Brook (2), Elon (1), Hampton (1) and William & Mary (1). https://caasports.com/news/2022/10/11/caa-announces-18-game-mens-basketball-television-package-on-cbs-sports-network-including-caa-championship-semifinals-and-final.aspx

Does anyone know the ins and outs of how the conference selects/splits their 18 CAA games on CBS Sports Network? Feels like more could have been done a three or so weeks ago when this looked like big game. It also doesn't look like either website has local channels that are picking up the FloSports feed in the way NBC Sports Washington does. We talk about how bad this conference has been post VCU, George Mason, ODU days, but this is one of the bigger games I can remember in the regular season, and it does seem poor that it is not on anywhere. Would even be nice to have Towson-Delaware showcased somewhere, not that it is a high level matchup like the other one, but the two teams were kind of the gatekeepers to the NCAA Tournament bid (along with UNC-W) last year.

In the Ingelsby era, Delaware is 3-8 against the Tigers, most notably beating Towson in the CAA Semifinals last season. This is the most annoying stat. We have pretty much owned Inglesby at Delaware, but he won the biggest game. We need to go at least 1-1 against Hofstra and Delaware these next two games if we want to be among top teams in the CAA. I still think there is an outside shot to be the second-best team in the conference and a decent opportunity to be the third-best if we can play at a consistently level. Of course, there is also a good chance we could be way worse depending upon how things go. So far we played hard, but lost to the best team in the conference, and we have two wins against teams we absolutely should beat (although the return trip to Drexel will be tougher). This is really is the first close to 50-50 game. We are 2.5-point favorites right now. Their Princeton win is probably the best win of either of our teams, and their Davidson win is comparable to our UMass win. So far Hofstra and Charleston have won on their home court in conference play. If we want to compete with those teams in conference play (I know Charleston may not be realistic), a win on the road tonight is important.

Still better than present-day Flo Sports.

We should find out a little bit about the conference with the UNC-Wilmington-College of Charleston matchup. It is also notable that between now and next Monday, we will travel to Delaware and host Hofstra, and Hofstra will also host Delaware. I imagine a lot of 1-1 records coming from the three teams playing each other, but if anyone goes 0-2 or 2-0 it might be a small sign of things to come in conference play. I say small because no matter what happens there is time to play better or worse, but it is really hard to tell what we are so far with three matchups we have had and the results that have come from it. I feel like the picture will be a little clearer by end of next Monday.

This team's results have been all of over the board. Played Maryland well for good portions of the game and beat DePaul, got crushed by Morgan State. Lost to Charleston (who lost to Hampton), beat Hampton by 39. Good to see them get the first conference victory for Coach Harper. I am interested to see what twists and turns this conference season will have for them.

Not many will be. We were below expectations in the non-conference part of what we all expected so far as well as the NET rankings. We are still only two games into the conference season so any judgement at this point would be ridiculous. We are all free to project what we think will happen and how we will judge it, but we have very little conference play data yet. That being said, based on what we entered the season expecting I don't think any of us will be happy at 9-9 in conference play, 18 wins and one in the conference tournament. What we think should be done as a result of that will likely vary as it often does on this message and almost every other message board I have ever visited when it comes to topics like that. That is why we post and have these conversations.

I will start this off by saying I think this team needs Cam to be a top level CAA team, and I hope this was only a short-term thing. I enjoy a lot of what he brings to the team and it is great to have a multi-dimensional player like him on the team who can affect the game in so many ways. All that being said, there just has been something off with him this year and particularly in the last four games. Coming into the Drexel game, Holden had 23 turnovers in the last four games 31% of the 73 for the team (18.25 turnovers per game). Last night, Towson had only its fourth game of the year with less than 10 turnovers (5 of which came from Russell, who got a little sloppy at the end of the game). Last night, Towson had its fourth-best FG pct. game of the year (.455, still not all that great), held an opponent to the lowest shooting percentage (.407) since Mercer (partially due to horrible perimeter shooting by Drexel), and had its third-best three-point shooting performance (.462) of the year. I think there is no doubt that Cam makes this team better, but his decision-making and defense lately have hurt the team and I do believe last night we saw a more locked in effort as a team. I don't think this all related to Cam not playing, but whatever way this team did last night they needed to clean up a lot of what has been ailing them during this losing streak. For one game they did that. This four-game stretch that includes at Delaware and Hofstra at home (as well as two absolute should-win games against Stony Brook) should help us see if we can get back on track taking care of the all, shooting a little better and playing better defense. As others have referenced, it is probably not fully sustainable without Cam the rest of the way but I think it was a good get-back-to-basics effort. Again, I hope this is short-term situation and nothing long-term because he was a big part of the most successful D-1 regular-season this program has had.

You are probably right, but I am not quite read for that structure yet. Feels like College of Charleston UNC-Wilmington, Towson, Hofstra Northeastern, Delaware, Drexel Everyone else, but Hampton (and I am pretty sure everyone but Charleston, will probably find a way to stub their toe against one of the likes of Elon, Monmouth, Stony Brook or NC A&T at some point this season). Hampton (they look like definitively the worst team) Like I said, I think you are right mostly, but CofC is the only team I think we can say is definitively better than everyone right now. Hofstra, UNC-Wilmington and especially Towson all have a lot to still show. I also think one of Northeastern, Delaware or Drexel could jump in that mix if one of the afformentioned three disappoint. As you have said before, it is garbage conference right now with Charleston and maybe UNC-Wilmington as the only good teams. I am not done thinking that we can get our crap together and be a top 3-4 team in this conference, but we have a lot to sort out to get there and that process needs to start tonight. I do think if this membership stays the same this could be a pretty solid conference eventually. Stony Brook had some really good America East seasons, Monmouth had some really strong runs in the MAAC and I actually expect NC A&T recruting profile to jump up because I think a lot of HBCUs are successfully ramping up recruiting efforts and raising expectations by leaving the MEAC.

Wrote my previous post too quickly. Should have said could be interesting not will be interesting. Obviously this was the most likely result, but I was interested to see what NC A&T could do coming off the Hofstra win. They did score more points against CofC than any team other than Richmind and UNC, but they clearly don't play a lick of defense. Looks UNC-W kept Elon on arms length for the entire night as well. They have done a good job of fattening up Monmouth, Hampton and Elon so far in conference play.

Nope, didn't end up being very interesting. That result makes sense. Sometimes the first 3-4 conference games results don't, and Charleston played tight games with Presbyterian and Stetson (they are alright) earlier this year. Good on them for eeking out a close game at our place and taking care of business against a crappy team that can score points and was coming off a good road win. That is what really good teams are supposed to do. They have been really good in non-conference play and I was interested to see if they would continue to be really good in conference play. They definitely took care of business tonight.

Tonight's College of Charleston-NC A&T game will be more interesting than we had initially anticipated. After being handled by Northeastern in its opener, NC A&T had an upset road win over Hofstra (after Hofstra crushed Delaware on the road). I would expect a double-digit CofC victory, but am interested to see if some of their sloppy play against Towson in the second half carries into that game.