Tiger93

I know the program usually posts these at least couple of days if not a week later than when they actually happen, but here is chronological order of when our transfers signed going into the 2021-22 season. Hopefully we will get someone within the next week. I don't necessarily care about the timing as I do the quality and fits. Hopefully some of that will fall into place. The double-edged sword is there are still a lot of players out there, which means a lot of studs and duds. Hopefully, we can come close to duplicating 2021-22 efforts. It still out there to be done, but man there is also a lot of fools gold lying around too. https://towsontigers.com/news/2021/5/3/mount-airy-native-paar-joins-towson-mens-basketball.aspx https://towsontigers.com/news/2021/4/24/mens-basketball-towson-mens-basketball-adds-2020-21-all-ovc-player-holden.aspx https://towsontigers.com/news/2021/4/5/mens-basketball-baltimore-native-nolan-jr-returns-home-joins-towson-mens-basketball.aspx https://towsontigers.com/news/2021/4/6/towson-mens-basketball-adds-america-east-all-conference-guard-rizzuto.aspx

I really liked Josh Leblanc as a Georgetown fan when he was there, and we have had decent success with past Georgetown transfers. He was athletic, active, and had a decent shot. However, I am cautious on him because it looks like he hasn't been all the productive since transferring from Georgetown.

Probably that the transfer portal could heat up on Thursday, April 6 until Sunday, April 9, and that there will be a little more action when things reopen April 14. I think I read that right, but not sure.

Seems somewhat intriguing and realistic. Averaged 14.2 ppg and 4.1 rpg last year, was Second-Team All-Conference, made the NEC All-Tournament team (which Merrimack won against Farleigh Dickinson, and he averaged 23.7 ppg and shot 65.8% from the field and 66.7%). I worry a little bit about him being a high volume three-point shooter with not-so-great percentages, but he seems like a guy who is transferring mostly to move up a level and obviously because he has an extra year.

He didn't do much when we played them. Maybe, he believes that this program is at the level it was when we played UMass, which was probably the high point of the potential of our season (that and maybe the first half against Penn before we did stupid things to let them back in the game and Gibson got hurt).

That is a fair assessment. I feel like he is similar to a lot of modern players in that he is fairly solid at one-and-one defense and defensive instincts when it comes to gambling to get steals (this was his main strength, and we will likely miss some of these momentum changing plays next year). I think he really struggled at team defense principles and often was late or at times non-existent at rotating out to guard perimeter players. This was not ideal for our defense when it was heavily predicated on switching.

His defense is interesting. I think he actually has te potential to be a very good defender on the perimeter. He has great anticipation, and is excellent at jumping in passing lanes to get steals. I also think he does a solid job at using his size against players quicker than him to keep up. When he was locked in he did this pretty well. I feel like more physical players who have a good post game can back him down fairly easily and score, but if they are just backing him down to be physical I think he was pretty solid. You need good post moves in general to score on him. All this can be canceled out when isn't motivated, which did happen during chunks of both seasons. However, I do think overall when he is locked in his defense is above average. That "when" part is big key. The other struggle towards the end of the season as the games were getting a little chippy is he went a little bit over the edge and did some weird things in games. I am sure he can figure that out, but he just needs to turn the page when he gets beat and not let it get to him. Like you said, none of this really adds up to anything close to an NBA Player, but if he wants to there is definitely a solid overseas career that he could carve out to make some money. I always found it interesting that Skerry thought he could be a coach someday. I don't know if I saw that. There are very few players that could go back and forth from play to play with some of the dumbest and smartest decisions I have seen paired so closely together. That stretch right before conference play was so beneath his talent level it was depressing to watch, but I give him a lot of credit for digging out of it and finshing strong.

A lot of players do this knowing they have no shot at getting drafted. I think he knows that too, but he has to put it out there. At least he can possibly get invited to a camp testing himself against NBA caliber players. I don't think any of us can do that. Best wishes to Cam. I don't know where his journey will take him, but I hope we finds a good next stop to build on some of what we he did here at Towson.

I definitely trust those who watch Maryland more than I do, but at least in Carey's case I know Willard saw him up close for a couple of years as one of the few consistently productive and experienced players at Georgetown and probably played it safe in his first year at Maryland by bringing him in to be a stabilizer. Even Martinez seemed to have a lot more experience. This is a tough environment now for freshmen who are not elite right away because there is such a backlog of experienced players that coaches tend to prefer. Not saying Cornish is anything special, but I think these are some of the inefficiencies of the transfer portal we can cash in on if we like the players and/or having previous connections.

Agreed, someone like this could work if you can also land a first or second team All-Conference guy from a mid-major (easier said then done). People act like that is a heavy lift for Skerry to accomplish, but as much as I stick up for him this is the current climate of college hoops and a big part of his job now is working the portal to land talent. If you can't do that off two of our most successful seasons in the conference when can you do it. I think Cornish seems like a risk, but a decent target. The portal is such a weird mix of waiting for the right player, but making sure you strike before everyone gets to the targets you want. A lot of these players seem like they have higher end options than us, and we will just have to wait for the pool to shrink a little or for the absolute perfect connection to pop up. This definitely makes mid-major recruiting a heckuva a lot more interesting than it used to be.

He might be worth considering. High-end top 100 kid who seems to have some size and athleticism. This is where the conversation potential high-end/high risk guys vs. proven mid-major guys comes into play. Of course, I defer to those who are local and probably know more than I do about Cornish.

They were the actual winners of the NEC this year and not FDU. He could got from winning the tournament with a program not allowed to compete for stupid reasons to a program where fate conspires against us to ever make it back to the NCAA Tournament.

I agree, it has evolved quite a bit over the years, to the point where calling it the Princeton offense is almost inaccurate (except for referring to the evolutions). That was my point in bringing up Georgetown because that was the first time that I recall that a program with high-major talent mostly ran that offense. For the most part it had good results. I agree on the layups and free throws, but if you don't have good spacing you want get those or any of the other shots you want. One thing that drives me crazy about modern college basketball is the insistent of leaning into the glamor of hitting the tough three-point. That being said, an offense that consistently gets good shooters open looks from efficient three-point spots can be highly effective. To me the offense is more about dictating to the defense what shots you want and get, and giving yourself space. The Princeton Offense can definitely be an effective tool to get this done, but is obviously not for every team.

My point is that Georgetown ran a very similar offense with more high-end talent and got good results from it. There are so many variations on the sets from what I understand that it really requires a team to buy into it, have an overall team mentality, and understand at times they will be sacrificing their shots for the betterment of the team. That is hard to get people to do. It also takes patience and calm since it often can take a number of passes to get what you want out of it, and sometimes that happens at the end of the shot clock. That requires players to see it through to the best results, and not hoist up three-point and panic when one part of it doesn't work. I do feel like the taking the air out of the ball reputation, which came when Carril first made it to the tournament, can be misrepresented. If a team gives you an open opportunity out of the set there is nothing saying the offense not to shoot it. However, it is mostly designed to be patient, precise and versatile to get the best possible opportunity on every possession. Of course, every offense is designed to get the best possible opportunity. I view that offense as a little different because of the ways you go about trying to do it.

We definitely fall into that trap in some games this year, and there were also decent amount of times we leaned too heavily on Nick down the stretch of games. However, I don't view that as a fair overall characterization for what the offense was trying to do in general and how it was run when it was working. I think you are actually both right. Skerry has evolved his offense somewhat from what it used to be, and he still has more evolving to do to make it more effective. However, it still boils down to who he recruits, how they take to his system, and how they perform.

I believe a lot of teams (even NBA squads) have taken variations from the Carril offense over the years and incorporated it. Georgetown under JTIII ran a variation of it from the early to middle part of his career. It wasn't purely the Princeton offense, but it was pretty close to mostly being the Princeton offense. He took a lot of criticism for it and did eventually did back of it little by little. I don't know how much truth there was to it, but as you said people were claiming none of the top kids wanted to come and be part of a program that mostly ran Princeton stuff. I just know the early part of his time with Georgetown was probably their most successful stretch since the mid-to-late 90s. There are a lot of really smart basketball plays to be make in those sets, but it requires developing a full all-around skillset which can sometimes limit the individual. Not something a lot of current players buy into unless you can reshape it around them.

Good point on the size. It felt like in the Monmouth game their center and in general their entire interior defense disrupted everything in that game and we were just hoping for points. I didn't see last night's game, but very disappointing ending to an otherwise positive season as many on here have already said. Also disappointing, that after beating Towson in the finals Monmouth couldn't even make it out of the play-in game against Tennessee Tech.

Agree to disagree. The major goal is making the NCAA Tournament, but you have to field a team for the other 30 games of the year. We may as well just not play December-March and just show up and roll the dice with your logic. There is no joy when you miss the tournament, but according to you every aspect of the season is a failure if you don't make the tournament and that is complete nonsense. Of course getting knocked out by a seven seed makes it more disappointing, but this is year one for the coach and it was a pretty good season overall. You always make fun of the parade for 20 wins and no NCAA Tournament, but there is an equal if not higher level of mediocrity to those who would prefer 10 wins, an NCAA Tournament appearance and a 50-point loss. There are a lot of in-betweens and the regular-season does have to matter for something other than seeding. At least that is my opinion. Respectfully, you won't change mine and I likely won't change yours.

I loved the Pat Kennedy hire when it happened and I really appreciated the fact that he helped this Athletic Department figure out a lot of things they were doing wrong. It set the stage for what Pat Skerry has been able to do. Kennedy was also awesome at Iona, Florida State and early on at DePaul. However, from the 2000-01 season at DePaul all the way through Montana (where he did have the resources to win that conference) and his Towson run things went downhill pretty quickly. I remember thinking when Kennedy left, we just aren't going to ever find anyone to turn around this sinking ship. I credit Mike Waddell for being pretty plugged in to the assistant coaching camp and circuit, which was a clique a lot of younger ADs were around and used to cultivate young coaching talent. Skerry was definitely a good up and coming coach when we got him and I really appreciated that. I think Griggey20 said it best. Talking about firing Skerry right now doesn't make much sense, but there can't be much of a drop off and we can't accept anything less than continuing to make progress to trying to get to the NCAA Tournament (I hope I didn't take what you said out of context). One reason why I was hesitant to look at other coaches in the past in football and basketball is I just didn't trust the AD in place to do it very well. I am glad Eigonbrot made the football hire and not Leonard, and I do trust him to figure out what to do based on how Skerry performs in the next year or so. I actually am optimistic that Skerry has figured out some things the last couple of years, but I am extremely interested to see what he gets out of the portal this offseason, because it is an important part in not letting this program take a step back.

Fair, but overall it was a successful season. Not everything is defined by one game. The loss to a No. 7 seed in the title game at home, definitely lessens the level of that success quite a bit. However, it does not make the season completely unsuccessful. If they were 11-21 and went the NCAA Tournament it would not be a complete success either. We will probably have this argument for an eternity even though we are looking for a similar level of success out of these teams, as I am sure they all are out of themselves.

Yeah, they also lost to Morgan State by 28 earlier in the year and beat Willam & Mary 32 (when they easily could have lost to them in the semis). They beat Monmouth by six on the road earlier this year. Guess what, sometimes teams play great, sometimes they lay eggs, and sometimes your opponent just kicks your ass and there is very little you can do it about it. It is not always down to one team choking and playing horribly as we often attribute (although Towson also couldn't buy a bucket in close yesterday). Granted, you rarely play well when you lose by 25, but as was stated Monmouth played extremely well and you know what they did the same against Drexel and Northeastern who also were good in the regular-season. My point, stop judging everything on one game. They played 32 games this season and they played well enough to win 21 of them. They didn't play well enough to win yesterday by a mile and that sucks. This program is just starting to grow into itself. Everyone deserves criticism when they don't deliver, but this team deserves far more praise than criticism and I expect more to come for as long as we can keep Laura Harper.

Not disputing any of this, just responding to the joke with a joke of my own. I am only a defender of Skerry in the sense of firing a coach who has won 46 games in the and gone 27-9 in conference play the last two years seems extremely absurd on the surface, but I do understand the ultimate balance sheet and the frustration of how long it has been since we appeared in the NCAA Tournament. I just don't engage in this argument much because I know where you stand and you know where I stand. It doesn't help to put words in people's mouths, which often happens on both ends here so I won't do it. I respect the viewpoints and understand why everyone feels this way, I just don't agree at this particular time with your course of action (I was a lot closer to all of you after 2020-21 even thought COVID was an unfair time to do it). Believe me when I tell you I have done as much or more research on the futility of this program to get to a conference tournament final (as it pertains to the conference and nationally) over the last 30 years than anyone here. It is more than just Skerry, but having been here for nearly half of that timeframe now he certainly wears a decent amount of the failure of it despite the fact that he has done the best job of anyone this side of terry Truax to make this program respectable. Ultimately, there is a point in time where the absurdity needs to end in terms of the NCAA Tournament drought. As I have said and will continue to say, it is borderline idiotic to chase out a coach that has done what Skerry has done the last two years. Where I completely agree with you all is these type of conference seasons and being in the mix for a tournament appearance (semis or better in the conference) is the minimum standard I expect next year no matter how many players we lose. Whether that is realistic or not, that is what the modern-day college basketball landscape is like. If we take a step back there are 4-5 programs ready to leap over us, and that is where I draw the line of unacceptable. I imagine that is close to where Steve Eigonbrot is as a person that has to make logical decisions about these types of things.

Well, most coaches do go to the Coaches Convention which is actually at the Final Four. So if he goes to that he would be closer, but don't let that get in the way of your joke.

One team ranked below Towson in the preseason coaches poll (NC A&T) and we go out and lose two of three to start the conference season. As everyone said, underfunded with no expectations.

Generally hasn't affected the volleyball team, but I get your point. The Same Old Towson stuff gets old, and as much as I get frustrated with it too I really think this was more about what Monmouth did in this tournament than Towson choking. At some point, you have to tip your cap to the other team even if they were the No. 7 seed in their first of the conference. They took it to everyone in this tournament, beating all three first-place teams. Back to drawing board Towson, but hopefully this is just the beginning for the program and Laura Harper.