Tiger93

Yeah, that was a crappy way to end the tournament. Give credit to Monmouth who caught fire, came to play in the CAA Tournament, and played some hellacious defense in the paint all day. Towson just could not figure out anything on offense. Part of it was on them, part of it was that no luck on their side, and a big part of it was Monmouth's effort and their center who altered a ton of shots. It sucks once again that we missed out on the opportunity to possibly be a 14 seed (where we were projected) in the NCAA Tournament (better than being a 16 against UConn, which was impossible) by losing to the 7th place team in the CAA. I normally would have that attitude about the WNIT, but with a first-year head coach, back-to-back appearances in the WNIT, and postseason tournament appearances in the 2019 NCAA Tournament, 2022 WNIT and this year there seems to be something to build off of with in the program. Very proud of this program and their year, and hopefully it can be springboard with an up and coming coach.

Was a little tight in the first quarter, but as someone I was talking to about the game said they did what No. 1 seeds are supposed to do in conference tournaments. Sounds like next up is William & Mary. We swept them in the regular-season. Of course, we know that guarantees nothing. Hopefully, they are playing on CBS Sports on Sunday in the final and we get a good crowd and a decent amount of people. As we have all said before, this has been a great story. I know there are reasons for doing this, but I really wish they would flip the dates of the CAA men's and women's tournament so the men's tournament ran Wednesday to Sunday. Frankly, they should be both go Wednesday-Sunday that but I know the men's tournament is dictated by CBS Sports other scheduled tournament games. Being a mid-major conference, Wednesday-Sunday seems to make more sense than Friday-Tuesday because the teams who have a better chance to win seeding wise can actually have an easier time making travel plans. Didn't mean to get too far off the great job the women's team is doing, but just wanted to share my thoughts. I am also very aware that TV is king and controls everything and there are about 10-15 conversations we are not privy to that dictate this stuff.

I won't argue that. Cam was definitely a huge part of the success the program has had in the past two years. Not sure where we would have been if you substitute a transfer miss in his place. Probably somewhere in the middle of where we were in 2020-21 and this year.

Bloop singles and doubles are fine as long as there is one home run in there somewhere. Nolan Jr was probably a double (could have been a triple if healthier) and I think Russell Rizzuto were more like walks. Sylla was probably a hit by pitch. I know I am torturing the metaphor. Cam was pretty close to a home run, but with some of the free throw shooting and regression ultimately ended up being more of a triple. I know this is a huge generalization, but I do think the Cam-type of player is a good one to target. Someone who has versatility and has been an all-conference performer in a similar or a little lower level than ours. Easier said then done, because it seemed like a lot of things fell into place for him to end up here. I like the idea of really good D-2 players and it has worked well for many schools. I think the Sylla gamble was a good one, but like I said when you watched film of him you could tell a role player was the best we were getting. I have been a Georgetown fan most of my life as well and watched Benimon his freshman year. I remember thinking as long as he wasn't too selfish it was a huge get to have someone of his talent at Towson. That and Gary Neal's situation seem like blind luck. Every year is different, but thank goodness for the transfer portal because this it would be an impossible transition (might still be very rough) without it. This adds to the intrigue of roster building for next year. Skerry deserves tremendous credit for what pulled off in 2021, but the pressure is on to keep doing it or else regress.

True, but it is overstuffing the rosters and blocking other player future opportunities. Probably better in some ways for quality of play. On its own, I completely agree with not shortchanging a player out of their career. Paired with NIL, Transfer Portal and the general way things go these days it just makes for more of a mess. Again, I am not saying don't do it. I just don't like seeing sixth (unless medical and or family hardship) and seventh year players. It will be gone soon anyways, and it is a pretty small issue in the grand scheme of everything.

Logically I know this, but it seems like after the 2021-22 year, when it needed to be an effect, it just created an unnecessary stack of players and a lot of absurd eligibility loopholes. It is the world we live in and I appreciate the opportunities for the players, but it just feels like it has gotten absurd. I will be glad to see it go. NIL is enough to deal with, stacking the extra eligibility year on top of it is creating a weird Frankenstein effect on college basketball.

Interested in opinions that people have about what sparks their interest most on transfers. Success stories of an all-conference performance like Holden, players looking to come home from something that happened somewhere else like Neal, or players looking to be the focal point of a team or change of style in play from a big school like Benimon. I know there is no one ingredient that makes anyone successful, but after our transfer class in 2021 I really would like to be able to nab at least one player that comes with all-conference honors from another conference (easier said then done). The D-2 Player of the Year excited me quite a bit in Sylla, but it was clear when you saw his film that he would be a complementary player. Charleston hit a home run on Brzovic, who I think was also a D-2 transfer. What do other people look at it and get excited by with transfer credentials? I know we all used to hate this stuff, but college is free agency and this is the new world of recruiting and figuring out the right formula to keep a team loaded with quality players. Once you have a program up and running, and transfers are part of the formula there really shouldn't be much of an excuse not to reload the next year. I know that is a lot for coaches, but this was they are signing up for in this era of college hoops.

I hope the best for Nick. He has been a great player to root for and part of one of my favorite classes in school history. However, it is time to leave college and go to the next venture which I hope is some sort of professional option for him. This may be an unpopular opinion, but these sixth and seventh year players in college basketball are just as big of an issue as some people think one-and-dones are for the quality of college basketball. If we are not going to abide by the regular five-year cycle what is the point of it being college anymore? That being said if there is a ridiculous seventh-year player like Dalton Bolon (which I find absurd) that can finally get us to the NCAA Tournament lets do it. Anyways, best of luck to Nick and I hope he gets to make whatever decision he choses on his terms.

No doubt, I didn't even sit with most Towson fans last year because the lower bowl tickets were ridiculously priced. I thought it was cool that for about $30 earlier this year that I could pretty much sit courtside behind the bench at the United Center when Towson played UNI even thought very few people were there. They should be putting this tournament on from Wednesday to Sunday (I know TV controls this, but there has to be a better way to manage it), lowering prices and pushing it more to the general public as a cheap ticket. I worked in college athletics for 20 years, and I know the marketing people I worked with worked really hard to think of new, creative and exciting ways to promote the events no matter where I worked. I bristle a little at simplistic solutions people have and that they don't think marketing departments haven't alright thought of this stuff. However, in this case the conference is shooting themselves in the foot before marketing folks even get a crack at promoting the event.

I love Charles, but I felt like for the most part in the three matchups Brzovic got the better of him. No shame in that because in three games against Charleston it felt like Brzovic and Scott were their best players (Reyne Smith was obviously pretty good yesterday too). Maybe I am crazy, but I thought in the second and third games that Biekeu actually guarded Brzovic more effectively than Charles did. That being said, the miss on the intentional foul was a big one. Unfortunately, Conway and Timberlake are probably the only guys on the team that would have had a chance to make both in that spot. Also on the play where Biekeu ran over the shoot they should have called travel, foul or something in the lane when Bolon had the ball. That was a really bad sequence of many for the refs. I don't really think the bad calls tilted the game because they were spread equally around to both teams (the blatant shove by Biekeu on Brzovic late in the game was pretty bad too), but that one pissed me off.

Never making it to a CAAT Championship game and not making it to a Conference Championship final since 1992 are not good enough for any of us. I don't think anyone would suggest just being good enough to compete with Charleston satisfied anyone. We just have many different ways to look at how to move forward. Last time I checked no one here is 100% on their predictions or opinions, which is why I come here to see the different perspectives of passionate Tiger fans. Let's face it I can't walk out the door in Minnesota (probably not in Maryland either) and have these conversations with just anyone.

Probably had to do with the fact that it was Siddle's first full year (second overall with the COVID year) as head coach and they are still building the expectations and culture for future players. Similar to what we were trying to do in 2014. He even mentioned in his postgame interview after the Drexel win that they know how to win in a tournament format based on past success (I think he alluded to the CBI title and the Bahamas victory they had earlier this year).

I was wondering the same thing. After all the twists and turns that went into this year would this group even have enough left to put a good foot forward in tournament game, and what would we be trying to accomplish by doing it? If the players are all in on doing it, and we want more games that is fine. I would enjoy seeing this group play at least one more game. I just don't know what they would be looking to get out of the experience.

Fair enough, I suppose this is where we say we are stuck in the middle. Much better than being stuck at the bottom, but still probably just as frustrating from a pure results standpoint. I am extremely disappointed in the way the last two years have ended, but I have trouble looking to fire someone after going 46-21 and 27-9 in conference play in two seasons. That is not mediocrity, but I do feel the pressure should be on not to slip back to the mediocrity that has preceded these years. Much like I was disappointed that Rob Ambrose did not build on the run to the championship game, I would be disappointed if we don't build off the last two years with a good, high level transfers this offseason. I think Skerry should be judged on what is next, but I do understand that NCAA Tournament or bust is important mentality for us to have.

I hope this team gets a solid turnout this week at SECU for the CAA Tournament. They are very deserving of a homecourt advantage to help them make a push to get to the NCAA Tournament.

Pretty on-point post. I can't disagree about the assessment of Skerry's team's (I say his teams because the buck doesn't just stop with him) performances in postseason play. I put yesterday's loss at least in the top five of most disappointing since I have started following the program. We were right there, but shot ourselves in the foot when we had the chance to grab the game by the throat on several occasions. That was not only a conference tournament game, but one that came against an opponent with a lot of national buzz that we could have used to help us if we had won. It reminded me a lot of our loss to Drexel in 1995, but this game was closer. Oddly enough last year's regular season was awesome but the conference tournament was very underwhelming. This year, the regular-season was underwhelming, but the effort and fight was good in the conference tournament (not good enough). This was probably Skerry's best run in a conference tournament (other than maybe 2017), but obviously not good enough. Ultimately the results are not good enough, because we can come up with 5-6 games against Power 5 teams (Pittsburgh twice (even though they sucked), Maryland, Clemson, Ohio State, I am sure there are a couple of others) where we were almost there and 3-4 conference tournament appearances and coming up short is clearly a consistent pattern. I will say when it comes to Skerry as the head coach at Towson the only way we guarantee doing any better would be to raise our expectations and go after a proven commodity like a Kelsey-type coach. This would require having the money to do it, finding the right candidate, a buyout, and the president and AD to be on the same page about the decision. It seems unlikely that would all come together when he still has three years left on his contract. I guess based on the Laura Harper hire this year that I somewhat trust Steve Eigonbrot's hiring process to this point if we did not go big, but tried to find someone else. I get the hunger for something new, but I don't think Skerry deserves to be fired. In defense of Skerry I will say a couple of things. I think he did do a good job of having his team ready for this tournament. The players were in position to make winning plays and they just came up short. In the past, I thought his teams were too tight or he was outcoached in big spots. I don't think it would be fair to say any of that this year in the conference tournament. However, we did have the luxury of playing with a chip on our shoulder as the underdog and he has been better in that role than he has been as the hunted (like in 2014, 2022). I was disappointed in the regular-season, but still 21 wins is not terrible it is just underperforming what we all expected which is disappointing at the end of the day. This is a big offseason. I remember in 2021 everyone was ready to say the quality was dipping and Skerry wasn't a good coach. He answered that in a big way with the transfer portal haul of Holden, Nolan Jr. and Rizzuto which led us to the most successful D-1 regular-season in school history, a 46-21 overall record the last two years and 27-9 conference record. I think he is facing the same question again and will need a similar haul to keep this going in what I believe is going to become an increasingly competitive CAA. This program can not afford to give up ground and not be a top 3-4 team in this league on an annual basis. I do believe Skerry has made some positive changes to be a better coach the last couple of years, even midway through this year. He was stubborn on switching his defenses, but finally did so at times this year including last night with a switch to a 1-2-2 zone that got a late stop against Charleston. He is still growing as a coach, and the ultimate question is do we think he can get to a tournament. I know a lot of people on here have an answer of no, and while I am not sure I think the last two years have been progress. However, I think the lack of results in the tournament make it so we have to continue to judge him at the standard of where the program is holistically. That means even with all of the players who may be graduating, I still expect him to go in the portal and find what we need to be a good team next year. We can't expect anything less. As for the players, I want to echo the fact that that I thought Cam was great yesterday. He forced Kelsey to almost exclusively play Scott on him for the second part of the game, which should have opened things up for Timberlake but we just couldn't get what we needed offensively when Charleston made their push on us. I also agree that up 70-69 with 1:48 to go I hate that the best we could with our season on the line was a Rahdir Hicks three. However, we were out of timeouts and Charleston just stuffed all of our options. We need to be better in those big spots and that has been a weakness all year. I love Charles, Jason and Nick. This is my favorite class since Blalock, Thomas, Alexander, etc., but we need to turn the page and upgrade our talent to get to a higher level. We have to evolve before this program gets sucked back into mediocrity, and there are ways to do that with Skerry in my opinion.

Who is going to be in attendance tonight (I imagine some who are may not see this until after the game)? I wanted to make it out from Minnesota like I did last year, but having two possible games on weekdays makes for difficult scheduling. I feel bad because I know Charleston is going to bring a good contingent and we need everyone we can possibly get to try to come close to matchup their support. It is probably better off that I am not there since I have been in attendance for three conference tournament semifinal losses (1995 when we lost to Malik Rose and Drexel, 2014 when we lost to William & Mary at the Baltimore Arena and last year against Delaware). Probably not a good thing, but for the 90s guys this sort of reminds of our matchup with Drexel in the semis 1995. They were the darling of the conference and it was our first year in what was then called the NAC. We beat Delaware in the quarters and had a pretty talented team to match up with Drexel. They called a million fouls in that game and Drexel was the better team and outlasted us in the foulfest. I think this year's team is more equipped to have a shot at winning, but Charleston is probably a taller task then beating that Drexel team (although Drexel ended up knocking off Memphis in the first round).

Agreed. We almost won the first game despite 19 turnovers and an 8-27 shooting performance in the first half. Of course we were on fire in the second half shooting 16-29. One interesting thing from that first game is they were awfully sloppy with a season-high 24 turnovers (their next most was 18). In the second game, they only turned it over 12 times, but only had nine assists on 25 field goals, which was by far their worst ratio of the year. Of course that was due in large part to the fact that they went to the line 35 times (which was legitimate because our defense was ineffective for most of the second half of the game). They outrebounded us by 7 in the first game and 4 in the second game. We leaned a little too heavy on Timberlake in the second game, but in the first game Can took 12 shots while Timberlake, Russell and Thompson all took 11. That seems like more where we want it. We really need two of Russell, Hicks, May, Sylla and Conway to be effective support options tonight. In the first game, May, Conway and Russell combined for 28 points (36 with Sylla and Hicks). In the second game, we got 21 points from Hicks, Conway and May (seven each, 29 overall if you add in what Biekeu, Sylla and Russell gave us). The other two brutal parts of that second game were 14-24 from the free throw line and 17 points from starters not named Timberlake. As we have said consistently, hit our free throws, limit our own fouls and defend well, distributed scoring and limiting turnovers are huge. This probably true almost all of the time, but much less margin for error. We talk about program-defining wins to move Towson to more well-recognized and advanced level. This is a great shot to do it. This is honestly probably the highest quality and most high-profile CAA team since the VCU and George Mason days. Let's got out and make our mark today!

Loved what Sylla gave us off the bench today. He hasn't scored that many points since the season-opener. We need at least one bench or support (probably between Hicks, Conway, Sylla, May or Russell) player to be an x-factor like that tomorrow if not two. I also enjoyed seeing our big three go 20-28 collectively with 50 points. We only shot 5-17 from 3pt-FG tonight, but the way to overcome that is to make sure you are getting efficient two-point looks and we did that going 30-40 from inside the three-point line. The good part is no one took more than 11 shots tonight. We need that distribution tomorrow as well, because we saw that although Timberlake was unbelievable in our last meeting against Charleston we were too over-reliant on him. We were also 13-17 from the free-throw line (not that there were any high-pressure free throws) and had a 19-10 assist-to-turnover ration. Balanced offensive production, solid defense and rebounding, limiting turnovers and good free-throw shooting are what we know we need to do win tomorrow. Let's hope we can hit those checkboxes tomorrow. We need to come out exactly the same way tomorrow, only as TUTigers2012 said there can be no let up. We punched Delaware in the mouth and they decided they didn't want to fight back. We know that won't happen tomorrow. For the 1990s guys on this board, this feels like the second-round matchup we had with Drexel when we first got to the America East in the sense that they were the darlings of the conference. I do give us a better chance to win since we have pretty much gone punch-for-punch with Charleston for most of the course of two games. We just haven't made the plays when we have needed to in the prior two games. Whether that be Charles hitting the second free throw at home down the stretch, or some of the careless turnovers and bad shots we took down the stretch when the pressure got ratcheted up in Charleston. This was the third-biggest blowout by Towson in a conference tournament game since we have gone D-1. The two highest were 122-58 over Buffalo in the 1992 ECC Tournament and 82-54 against Northeastern in 2017. Let's hope we can keep things at this level tomorrow.

Feels like he is playing like a guy who knows his time is running out on his college career. It seems like there has been a little extra determination and decisiveness in his play since he came back from the suspension. It is weird, prior to his suspension he looked so tentative and was giving up passes on all sorts of open shots and scoring opportunity to overpass. He was turning it over in bunches doing this. I think he has flipped the opposite way since his return and is trying to be overly aggressive. He is always a great passer event though it sometimes is accompanies by some questionable decisions. His aggression has sometimes spilled over in overenthusiastic ways. I don't think there is really anything wrong with this, but I have never seen a player who constantly looks for opportunities to throw the ball hard off other players out of bounds. Is it because he is instinctively a step ahead of the guy or is it because he is often caught in no man's land and is frustratingly trying to reset the play that has little chance to succeed. The thing that drives me the most crazy about him is his free throw shooting. He has the free-throw stroke of an 80% free throw shooter, but does not get the results. For some reason, I thought I remembered him being a mid-70% free throw shooter before the jaw injury last year but maybe I misremembering things. Out of the all the bad free throws what drives me the most crazy is that it feels like he misses the front end of the one-on-one every time. It probably just feels like that because I saw him do it in-person three times against Bryant, I believe he did it once or twice against Charleston last week, and he did it again against UNC-W. He seems less capable of making one-in-ones than even regular free throws. The knee against UNC-Wilmington was super suspect. The video of him getting tangled up with the ball boy was just weird. It looked strange, and I don't even understand if there was intent or what was going on, but I think that might be a little of reach on their part. Cam is a very weird player to root for and he can drive you crazy, but I am happy he has chosen to play here for two years, and the fact that we are 45-20 and 27-9 in the CAA with him being one of the key players on the roster is definitely a testament to what he has brought to the program overall. I give him and Skerry some credit for whatever happened during those three games and how they have approached it since. I am glad he has spent the two years here at Towson and I hope he is getting a positive experience he will take forward from it. It would also be nice if somehow he could heat up and help us win three games in DC, but I know that is probably asking too much.

The higher the seed the better since we get to host the tournament at SECU. Great showing for a first-year head coach who had to deal with a lot transfers. If we can beat Stony Brook, we will have beaten everyone in the conference except oddly enough Hofstra (who is second-to-last place at 3-13).

Man, it is hard to get outcoached when your team can't buy a bucket the last 11+ minutes. I know you can criticize coaches in general for offensive sets, management of the game and sub patterns, but when a team goes that cold it has as much or more to do with the players on the court than the coaching. I am probably one of the more optimistic people on here, and I did call this win. However, while I don't think there was anything from the players or coaches standpoint I will agree with TuTigers2012 that it was such horrific second half it was hard to know what to make out of it. Our guys fought hard, but UNC-W really did hand that game to us on a silver platter. We will gladly take it and our guys deserve credit for sticking it out, but that was the ugliest half of basketball I watched all year. Part of me thinks we are better when things go completely haywire like that, because we are probably better than just about anyone in this conference at winning ugly. Unfortunately, as many have said there can be no messing around this team has to come ready to limit turnovers, limit dumb fouls, hit our free throws, and we need contributions from everyone. That will have to happen in three straight games. This team is capable of doing it on a game-to-game basis so I am hoping for the best, but it will be extremely tough task for these guys to do it for three games in a row when it will probably have to come against Delaware, Charleston and Hofstra. March is time to reset, and hopefully we show up loose and ready to show everyone what we can do.

Any team that wants to win this tournament outside of the top two is likely going to have to beat Hofstra and Charleston in some order. I agree Hofstra is a better matchup for us than Charleston, but it is dumb to sit guys or try to lose just to make that matchup happen. Especially because both will be extremely hard to beat anyways. It is not a Hofstra is a team we could easily beat, we just match up fairly well with them. In fact, the script of our loss on the road to Charleston and Hofstra played out almost the exact same way. No matter who we play, we have to shoot well from the free-throw line, limit our turnovers, and have a distributed scoring effort where guys other than the main three step up. Heck, we probably even need that in the quarterfinal matchup to make sure we win. As for the difference between Delaware, Drexel, or for that matter Northeastern they are all teams we should beat if we show up to play, but who also terrify me in the first round of a tournament format. Honestly, this team has a lot to clean up to make sure they show up as the best version of themselves than they do figuring out how to get cute with matchups. That was gutsy effort to come back and win tonight. It was amazing that UNC-Wilmington went that cold down the stretch, the goaltending call got reversed (one angle looked like goaltending on the broadcast and other didn't), and that they did not go back to review Cam kneeing the guy in the head (although it would have been tough to assume intent, even though it looked like it might have been intentional). Still, give Christian May credit for knocking down the big three that tied it, Timberlake immense credit for hitting his free throws to keep us in it and eventually push us ahead, and even though he was a little out of control at times give Cam credit for taking over on offense to try to make things happen (I just wish I could see him hit the front end of a one-on-one at some point).

I don't think that is true. We had already lost to Fairfield and our computer numbers were not anywhere close to what they were last year. Plus at that point, Clemson's numbers were terrible too. Very few if any had those thoughts at the time. It was a good opportunity to improve those numbers and we were all pissed that it was another missed opportunity at a Power 5 win, but I don't think anyone was thinking at-large after the Fairfield loss. I also didn't realize at the time that it was going to lead to a stretch where this team completely unraveled for 4-5 games.

What a waste of a brilliant offensive night by Timberlake! Holden was trying to be the second scorer, but overall that was probably the worse game in a big moment we have seen from him. I am probably only grabbing this off the top of my head and there is no way it is correct, but it feels like Cam is a 30% free throw shooter on front-ends of a one-on-one. His stroke is fine and I don't get his free-throw struggles, it really feels all mental (which I guess is mostly what free throws are). I really didn't like the last 8-10 minutes how it felt like all we were doing on offense was trying to get the ball the Timberlake. It was very limited and Charleston was able to take advantage of the fact that we really didn't have a Plan B. On defense this felt a lot like the Hofstra road game. We came out with intensity and did a pretty good job against them for 25-30 minutes (although some of that was them missing open shots). However, the last 8-10 minutes, they either scored or got fouled. They had completely figured out our defense, our guys looked tired, and they were energized by the crowd. Unlike the Hofstra game, Skerry did actually throw a couple of possessions of zone out there and some pressing to mix it up, but nothing worked and I get the feeling he doesn't trust the players enough to mix up defenses when things aren't working. That is indictment on both him and the players. I know Charleston has been doing this all year, but that was in incredible stat line of five guys scoring 12 points and another scoring 13. They are doing what we did last year with balanced scoring at a higher level. We always have the criticism here of not having a go-to player on Towson, but Charleston doesn't really have a go-to player and it works for them. As much as I appreciated Timberlake's offensive effort and guts today, we will never win against top teams when two players take more than half our shots (especially when Cam is as bad as he was). We are at our best when everyone gets involved on offense, but those nights are hard to find because outside of the main three guys we are pretty limited on guys who can score with consistency. Finally, the fact that we shot 11 less free throws than Charleston did and scored 15 less points is pretty much the game right there. We can talk all about Skerry's history in the conference tournament, but nights like this where we shoot 14-24 from the FT line and turn the ball over 16 times are why we won't go far if we play like that. Skerry gets some blame for that, but these players are capable of doing better and I think they know that. Doing better for three straight games is the type of consistency we haven't seen this season, and why all of us have trouble envisioning three or even two high quality efforts in a row in the tournament. I still stand by the statement that we will beat UNC-W, who struggled to shake Stony Brook at home last night, on Saturday. Not that it really means anything, except grabbing wins against everyone in the league except Charleston. There is also part of me that would rather be the No. 4 seed because I think we match up better with Hofstra than Charleston.