lightspeednate

I bet $20 on Towson to win the National Championship. Payout is 40k$ I also put $100 on Notre Dame to win 25k$

Where is Gibson?

I hate to bash individual players, but a few of their seniors were inconsistent all season long (Gray, Rizzuto, Nolan). I can’t say I’ll miss any of those 3 guys. They didn’t show up tonight. It’s the seniors that often determine your destiny during this time of year. Delaware's seniors came up big. Cam Holden is the only senior that I think will be dearly missed for next seasons roster. There are tons of holes to fill, But I think that they have the core pieces (in C.Thompson, Timberlake and Gibson) to be competitive again if Skerry can go out and find another couple of strong transfers and a couple strong freshman. It would be a devastating blow if any of those three core pieces decide to transfer to another team. I know I am being a little harsh on these 3 seniors that I mentioned, but I am also doing it in hopes that they can prove me wrong in the NIT coming up soon. If you guys see this post, I hope it lights a fire in you. March Madness is not over, lets go make a run in the NIT. To ANYONE saying that the NIT is "meaningless" is so wrong. It means a lot to Towson, who is a program that has potential and needs every opportunity it can get to grow. These games on the ESPN stage and they matter. This NIT appearance feels crucial to this teams future. Do I expect them to win it all? No. But a win or two would feel awesome and might help with the morale for the future of the team and the morale of the offseason recruiting process. I think next season is the hot seat season for skerry. Hope he can live up to the pressure and get over the hump.

Is he on the hot seat? Maybe. But I still consider the hot seat as one where you give the coach 5 years or so to prove themselves (given they don't have a losing record along the way).

I don't know where you are getting these expectations from!? I am not the biggest fan of Pat Skerry, but he isn't doing a bad job. In fact I think his struggles with scheduling have a lot to do with teams knowing that Towson is a tough team. They come into each season as a CAA frontrunner in many peoples eyes. On top of that, I would say Towson probably has one of the smallest fan bases in all of college bball. Maybe like 275 out of 337, maybe even worse. Being in a very populated area helps. But like Mat said, one NCAA tournament berth grows this fan base by a few thousand, which is a major deal for the program. It might bring in the extra recruit or two that they need to win the CAA each year. If Skerry does not make the tourney within 5 years, fine then fire him. But I personally think he's going to finally get one within 5 years.

I think basketball is a sport where one or 2 players can make the difference. I think Pat has had some teams that are close to getting to the NCAA tourney, but I think most of his teams have lacked a go to threat on offense. Benimon was probably his one star of note from his tenure so far, but they got upset by W&M in his final season. Zane had a very high PPG this season, but I think it was partially due to there being no one else to compensate for some scoring. I am really looking for to seeing Gorham continue to grow, and to see the two big men fill in the depth chart (Solomon and Duquense transfer). It's the offseason that will decide the rest of the fate for next season. Have to find some guards. I think PS knows that he isn't going to be able to get top recruits to Towson, so the transfers are the key to Rating his offseason. He's got to go scrap for some gems.

Troy Franklin? Hahaha he was pretty bad. Believe it or not, he's a really good pro player in Denmark or somewhere now.

Pat has some big changes to make, but I think the size this team brings next season puts them in the CAA mix. The question is can Pat land a starting quality guard?, as Mat puts it. That is something Pat hasn't done a great job doing so far in his career, but maybe he can finally find one..

Agreed on Mcneil. He’s somewhat one dimensional, but I do see him as a much needed hot hand type player for the team. He also has ability to dribble and pull up when he wants to create a better look for himself. I think he has potential to be very efficient offensively on limited usage. I think He’s much better than a Four Mcglynn who had poor dribbling/driving and mostly preferred to catch and shoot. As for the game, yes the defense was somewhat poor, but it’s hard to get anything going with the way they started. Like you said Oakland did a great job running off a rebound and Towson had trouble getting set. I think Oakland really had their minds set that they were going to win this one. Pretty flawless execution on their side until the last 8 mins in this one. I think it was good to see Towson being pushing to its limits by a team that was clearly feeling it.

McNeil looked really good. Took really good looks and made every one of them. If he keeps getting more confidence, I like him to become one of the key players on the team. Oakland seems like they had a very good counter style to Towson. High powered, high paced offense. Towson just does not look ready to be getting itself into shootouts like this one and it seems like it was a game Towson can learn a lot from. While it wasn’t a great result, I enjoyed watching this one. Oakland is an athletic team with great outside shooting. Could probably learn a few things from them on the offensive end.

If there were a team out there that shouldn't trash talk about its performances against D3 schools, it'd be Towson. Towson had some really underwhelming performances against St. Mary's and Frostburg. Two teams that Towson should have easily dropped 100 on. But I am not going to go complaining about those games. But say Towson somehow goes on to run the table.....that is something I am sure the committee looks at before giving out too generous of a seeding. I definitely think Oakland will be tougher than Pitt. Pitt will be without Ryan Luther for when Towson visits, so I am liking Towson's odds in that one. Oakland is consistently one of the bigger names for mid-major teams and they are 4-0 at home so far. Also with the way Towson has escaped some close games, I just hope Towson can give themselves a chance to get out to a comfortable lead. Being in tight games on the road is always more difficult than it is at a neutral or home game.

Wouldn’t be surprised if Towson establishes itself as a strong road team this season. Already 2 early season tourneys under their belt and not exactly the most exciting Home fan base (although seems like we’re headed in the right direction after tonight). I love the arena, but it’s almost like a semi-pro or D-League type atmosphere in there. The band helps, but the home games are major work in progress. And for that reason, the team has a lot of reason to look forward to the road trips.

Towson shot well this game. 3’s were going in for just about everyone, and they shared the ball well. If games were decided by stats, you’d think they had won this game by 20. But the big 2 stats of this one that hurt Towson, was that Morgan had more second chance looks and also capitalized on Towson’s 15 turnovers. Also wasn’t Towson’s best defensive game. Really good job pulling this one out. Means a lot to beat the Baltimore area opponents, and sometimes these local games end up being a little closer than they’d like them to be.

Any video streams for this game?

Mormon and Gorham’s play off the bench is huge. Those two played well, hence the easy win. Interesting that PS is having them come off the bench, but it does seem to spark the team. I believe Morsell and Thomas are worthy of the starts, but they aren’t getting a lot of minutes because of their tendencies to make mistakes. Not really impressed with the limited looks at Ingram/Prophete/Rolle. Obviously Rolle isn’t going to be seeing a lot of playing time anyways, but Ingram/Prophete May be. Ingram especially seems to be a little undersized and not ready for his assignments.

FAU is not a home game. It is day one in part of a 3 game tournament down in Florida (8 team tourney). It is a fairly weak chunk of teams competing in that, so hopefully Towson can make it to the championship in that little tournament. Really no reason they can't. From what i've read, FAU is among some of the weaker teams in all of D1 this season. Loyola should be a really fun one. Probably my most anticipated non-conference game this season other than Pitt. Not that they are even that good, but it is always nice to beat them. And going on the road and doing it would be even sweeter. Also they played very well against Northwestern, so it will not be a automatic won game. Still another game that i'd highly favor Towson in. I think UMBC will be a much harder in-state game in early December. UMBC only lost by 11 to SMU and 25 to Arizona. Those 2 teams are tournament teams, and Arizona is possible Title contenders.

Morman is definitely going to be a leader of the team. He's the most Division 1 conditioned player on this team. Well built, well balanced player. That is what I saw last night. Once again this team has some issues to figure out offensively. It took until mid-late last season to get things figured out, and that is one good thing about this semi-cupcake non-conference schedule this season. They have a little bit of a cushion to have some room to find their offensive identity. I don't really see anywhere on the schedule where they are going to really embarrass themselves, because they're going to match up well against just about all of their opposition this season. But hopefully that doesn't let the team become content with themselves, because they have a ton of work cut out for them if they expect to win the CAA and compete in the NIT/NCAA's. NIT/NCAA's are another league compared to the CAA and absolutely another league compared to their non-conference schedule. But while I think the weak scheduling is a bit frustrating, it may bode well for them this year, another year where it may take them a little bit of time to really get things going.

When I saw this, I thought it was because more of a "Mahalak has been benched" type of thing. If Mahalak isn't 100 percent he doesn't really deserve the start, considering that he played poorly last game. So I guess it's partially due to his poor play, partially due to him not feeling well.

UMD's starter Pigrome is out for season with a torn ACL. So that does make things a little more interesting for this game. Although considering how well UMD played last game, and how poorly Towson played: UMD is probably going in with the mindset that they aren't going to miss a beat. Found out I'm not working Saturday, so I'm going to make the trip down to the game. Thought Towson could've played much better in the 2011 matchup with UMD, so really hoping this one can end up a little bit better.