AtlantaTiger

Huge credit to Rob Ambrose. Is he officially calling the offense again? Did he pull it back from his brother? Great balance and execution. Not to get too far ahead of ourselves but is there any chance that ESPN does Game Day from Towson next month? The last couple of years they do College Game Day from an FCS campus the weekend in which most FBS schools play their cupcake game prior to rivalry week. They’ve been to NDST, JMU and others. Depending on our record come mid November, maybe they come in for the JMU game? Maybe the Flacco angle would be compelling for them?

Would love the next major evolution of Towson football include an invitation to FBS. (A guy can dream, can't he?) Maybe sometime in the next 20 years when either Conference USA or the Sun Belt look to expand. Maybe by then we'll have a few more FCS playoff appearances and a National Championship or two. 😉

I drove up to Winston Salem and went to the game with my wife and kids. We sat on Deacon Hill in the south endzone. What a great game day experience and environment....very family friendly. As I was eavesdropping on conversations around me by Wake fans, there was certainly some serious concern early on as "Townson" was moving the ball well. Their big guys were just bigger than our big guys. We got absolutely stonewalled along the d-line. The next morning we went for breakfast to a local greasy spoon called Mama Zoe Michaels. Evidently, it's the place where the Wake Forest football team and fans go on Sunday mornings.....jam packed with folks talking about the Towson game. The score is not indicative of the effort the Tigers gave. I was very impressed with our level of speed and athleticism from our skill players. I think we're going to catch a lot of teams sleeping on us.

I'll be making the drive up to Winston Salem from Atlanta tomorrow. Go Tigers!

Terrance may have been legitimately beat out by a couple of better backs but I'm sure his attitude and self-perceptions didn't help. I don't get the impression he's "hungry" to prove himself anymore.

Whatever happened to Christian Summers? Is he still trying to make a career out of football at any level? Didn't he get a shot in Jags camp last summer? I thought that kid's physical tools could make him a sneaky free agent.

Why on Earth would he think he's NBA material or draft worthy? He was a second team selection in a mid-tier mid-major conference. Who is advising this kid??

I think that's a great point you make regarding the mindset of a player.....either they bail because they don't play or because they think they've become too good for the program. I will say this, I don't envy the job that coaches at the mid-major level have to do in terms of recruiting. A lot of these kids have one foot out the door at all times. In my opinion, Towson needs to make up its mind on what it wants to be known as in regard to its athletic programs. Go ALL in on one sport. Be known as an ELITE mid-major basketball program, a-la Butler circa 2007-2011, and truly commit to building the program. Become a "Giant-slayer" program and adopt an anyone, anywhere, anytime approach to scheduling. Kids/recruits respect that and want to be a part of that kind of culture. OR Recommit to building the football program and make every effort to become the North Dakota State of the east coast. Bring in the best coach you can get. Towson has been ambivalent about its sports identity for far too long. It should have far more success in its "core" sports than it does. It starts with a competent Athletic Director.

The fact that he was a second team CAA selection should be all the assessment of his abilities that he needs.

Nothing but love for UMBC! Baltimore, stand up!

As I watch NKU give Louisville all they can handle in the NIT, I can’t help but envy the fact that they’ve gone to the NCAA tourney and the NIT in back to back years in only their second season of D1 hoops. God Bless that program and the people who run it.

You hit on a key point in my opinion. Towson needs to find a way to generate more interest and support from the community/city itself. If they're not aggressively marketing the basketball team and game tickets to the larger Towson community, they're missing out. I lived in Indianapolis from 2008-2010 and went to my fair share of Butler basketball games in that time. They were still a Horizon League team at that time but still had a packed house most nights. My guess is the average age of most people in attendance was about 63. There was an amazing sense of community and pride in the local team in the northern suburbs of Indy. Granted, Hinkle Fieldhouse is an OUTSTANDING venue to see college hoops and Butler had a rich tradition of winning. However, they understood that you had to SELL the team to the local community. Just get warm bodies in the seats. Also, this isn't a "chicken or the egg" scenario. Should Towson find a way to start TRULY competing for CAA championships and go on an NCAA tourney run, say maybe 3 out of the next 5 years and develop a more nationally recognized identity of being a mid-major threat, the students will quickly jump on the bandwagon. The program hasn't given the students a whole lot to get excited about. Lame OOC matchups and slightly above average season W-L records aren't going to get today's distracted students excited.

No one wants Towson to get into the NCAA Tourney more that Skerry. That's his ticket to his next big job opportunity. It's really the only thing not on his resume at this point. He's salvaged a program and gotten them to respectability and he graduates his players. A Tourney appearance would put him squarely on the radar of next tier programs......especially with a strong showing or even a first round upset. He'd bolt so fast from Towson it would make your head spin. One-bid conferences are so cruel.

I happen to think Skerry should get one more season to see if he can finally get over the hump and win the CAA. If he can’t, then it would be time to part ways. Having said that, the mindset of “who could Towson get that would be better?” (So let’s keep Skerry), is such a defeatist attitude and reflects such a lack of respect for the program. Who knows what young and hungry coach is out there that could come in here and jumpstart the program?? There are plenty of emerging coaches that would love to get a shot to coach at a school like Towson.

First, I hate to say “I told you so”, but I did call for an 80-67 Tribe win, 10 minutes before tip, on an earlier forum topic. Missed by 1! Look, this team had ZERO leadership on the floor the entire season. Today looked like they were playing a pickup game at the local YMCA. No semblance of an offense...just chuck it up. Here’s hoping that the 2018-19 squad is much hungrier and much smarter.

Watching this online....12 minutes into the game and I’m about to turn it off. What a terrible team we have. No rhythm, no patience, no structure. Eddie Keith looks like a 42 year old man out there. Doesn’t look like he committed to the fitness plan. Too many late night wings at Bateman’s.

I hate to be a pessimist, but I'm not feeling great about today's game. Hard to beat a team 3x in a season and our Tigers are so wildly inconsistent. I just not convinced we have that fire-in-the-belly killer instinct that is needed this time of year. I could see it being WM 80-TU 67. I pray that they prove me wrong! Go Tigers!

Skerry has ZERO answers for this team’s performance down the stretch. Zero. We can dig into the stats all we want but the bottom line is this team is helpless right now. Quick exit from the tourney next week. What a disheartening season.

Just feels like this team has run out of gas.....almost limping towards the finish line of the season. I hope they prove me wrong!!

What’s disheartening is that this team hasn’t really gotten better at anything as the season has gone on. If anything, I feel like they’ve regressed. I think that’s an indictment of the coaching staff.

Abysmal FT shooting and far too many turnovers, but a W nonetheless. Nothing comes easy with this team. They just need to find a way to get hot in Charleston.....sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. Anything can happen in the conference tourney.....while it's not probable, it's not impossible either. Go Tigers!

C’mon boys, get me a W on my birthday!!

Even if it means we never get a home game in the deal, I still think it's better for us to go on the road and get our teeth kicked in by the likes of Wake Forest, Butler, Georgia Tech, etc., than to play a bunch of tomato cans and get ZERO benefit. I'd rather go 3-7 in non-conference play if it means it's going to get us better prepared for the CAA schedule.

Going back to the issue of scheduling.....until we schedule some *marquee* non-conference teams AND beat them on occasion (I'm looking at you, Tim Leonard), Towson will continue to be a far-under-the-radar basketball program. Assuming we won't be breaking our NCAA Tourney drought anytime soon, it would be nice to create some buzz for the program by occasionally taking on some brand name teams. The next best thing to making the Big Dance would be for some noteworthy non-conference wins. Will we get steamrolled most of the time? Maybe, but at a minimum it would help generate interest on and off campus for the program.

What do we think of Skerry’s assistants? I wonder if Gary Neal would ever consider coaching once he officially hangs ‘em up on his playing career. He might make a nice assistant coach and be a big time help on the recruiting trail with establishing credibility for the program.