Chris Datres

And overnight, the line flipped 3 1/2 points. Towson now a -2.

Opening line has Drexel as a slight favorite. Even with Holden out, I like our chances.

Hey, who needs non-con play??? Don't really care how it looks for the rest of the conference. If all these supposed good teams wanna lay down for when we get to them, so be it.

First nite of conference play... Elon pounds NE, leading start to finish. The dreadful Tribe edges everyone's darling Hofstra at home. Supposedly, W&M got a couple guys back in the lineup. UNCW tips the Chickens with free throws in the last 3 seconds. Up is down, left is right, conference play is a different animal.

JMU just canceled their game tomorrow against Penn cuz they got COVID issues. So we can pretty much expect not to play Friday.

They got Lehigh. Good for the Engineers.

We’ve done what we needed to do in the non-con. If the Twerps want a game, they can come to SECU. We have a conference to work on.

Found it. 8:05 left, Navy was on FT line. Shot clock sitting at 23 and never reset. Gibson hit a 3 to put the lead back in double digits. That’s a terrible miss by everyone involved.

On the shot clock play in question, we took the ball out at 94 feet and Navy pressed. Only reason why I noticed was because I was afraid of a 10-second call and I looked up at the shot clock and saw 15. I can’t remember the play sequence prior to that but pretty sure it was a Navy free throw.

I have heard that the AD job hasn't even been posted yet. That will likely happen after the holidays and the first round of interviews will likely be virtual since the 'airport meeting' is pretty discouraged given current pandemic situations. So we may be looking at late January by the time the first round of interviews begin.

It’s one thing to see it on TV but another to watch it up close - the defensive intensity was off the charts today. Lots of talk, lots of knowing where everyone needed to be. The only disappointing part was getting beat to the boards and giving up so many second-chance opportunities. But that’s probably expected when the opponent’s frontline is bulkier. Fortunately, they’re not all that talented. It was a junkyard dog type game and we hit the necessary shots at the right times, but we did leave a lot of points on the board. As for the officials - very subpar. They lost control of the game early and allowed so much bumping and holding in the post on both sides. The flagrant on Holden shouldn’t have needed a review. If you can’t judge that live, go back to HS officiating. They even screwed us out of 10 secs on the shot clock when we were up 9 right before Timberlake hit a corner 3.

Since I was home for Xmas, my parents watched the game with me and they thought I was out of my mind on the final drive. And this coming from people who rant at every Kentucky rebound or Steelers loss of 2 yards. Given that, I’ll be 100x worse if we make a CAA final in basketball.

Ali from Charleston just hit the transfer portal. Chalk one up for the good guys.

Fang used to do that all the time when he was at Coppin and for the same reason -- build the athletics budget. I don't think he pioneered it but he gained attention for it after Coppin beat South Carolina in the first round in 97. Now, there are plenty of schools, especially MEAC/SWAC teams, that bolster the budget by getting their brains beat in on a game-by-game basis for 80-100K. There's one team that has done it the last few years who has benefited from it. Texas Southern gets toasted at all corners of the map but then they get into conference and use that experience from their nonconference roadtrip from hell to run through their conference and get into the NCAA Tournament. Last Monday, Texas Southern went into Gainesville and not just beat the Gators but they beat the crap out of them. If Coppin can capitalize on their experience of this and use it to win the MEAC, then it'll be worth it.

W&M and UNCW are dreadful. Elon is way below average. I saw Delaware live and they're nothing special. Charleston just barely survived in OT at home to something called the Blue Hose. Madison has that win over Virginia to hang on their wall and maybe they're the class of the league at the moment. Bottom line is that the way we've started out with these first 11 games, there's no reason why we can't be in the top 3 of the conference in the regular season and be in contention at the conference tourney.

Us old-timers still have it but that was Louisville and that's going on 27(!!!!) years now.

It was a terrific effort against a high-ranked team on their home floor after playing a game 48 hours prior. What I thought would cause us problems ended up doing just that -- the difference in the frontcourt talent. Liddell and Key were just too much down low. That shot Key hit at the end of the first half was absurd. At the beginning of the 2nd half, OSU was getting every loose ball and they'd get buckets while we'd come away with nothing at the other end. The first half was, like Mat said, as good a ball movement as we've ever seen from a Towson team since probably the Truax days. The drive and kick was on point and naturally, it helps when the shots go down too. But we just got worn down in the post and when we'd concentrate on that, they'd start nailing 3's left and right. But they never gave up and kept after it. As Mark Adams stated on the broadcast, if we're the 8th-best team in this conference, then the conference is stacked. As for the double tech, this ref's best guess is that Nolan said something to Liddell on the free throw line after the first foul shot and Liddell responded and they started jawing and the ref put a stop to it.

So I'm just gonna keep laughing at these big-name teams when they lose to the mid-majors in the tournament because the coaches are too scared/elitist to get themselves in a hostile situation in November or December when a loss there really doesn't matter to them. You think a tourney team like Ohio State is gonna get hurt much by a loss on the road at Akron now? Not hardly. Will they be hurt by a loss to Akron in a neutral site in the 4-13 game of the NCAA Tournament? You're damn right they will be. Duke is another great example. K won't go into another team's gym unless forced to by the Big Ten/ACC Challenge schedule. Whenever he'd play Temple 'on the road', he'd play them in the Wells Fargo Center instead of playing them on campus (10,000-seat arena). Duke's history of flameouts or near flame-outs to mid-major teams in the last 7-8 years is documented. As a college basketball fan, games like Virginia at James Madison and UNC at Charleston are a lot spicier than the other way around. But the vast majority of power 5 conference coaches are either too elitist or too scared (or both) to take a risk on just one game in their non-con season.

He's right and even though they lost tonite, it's going to help them down the line in conference play when they're in a hostile situation. Could also help in the NCAA Tournament if they get there and they're playing a mid-major and the arena is against them. I think more coaches should do it. Would Texas have rather lost to Abilene Christian at Abilene in December or do it in front of the whole nation on the big stage in March? Plus, it's good for the game when the big boys go into the smaller arenas and sell them out. If we could get someone marquee-worthy into SECU and we sell the place out (even if it's with the opposition's fans) and then play decently, that could be a good marketing tool. But it's nice to see a team like Virginia do this and I'd love to see other big name teams do the same.

Facts say they won the game. I know that you'd rather that we don't win games so your little agenda of getting every coach fired becomes successful. You might as well be down there in College Park screaming at Turgeon.

Yeah, we won but they were to bad teams. Jeez dude, do you ever enjoy a win?? You make a wet blanket just seem damp.

Kent State fans want to complain about the officiating? That's rich. OK, maybe one or two of those Thompson blocks could have been a foul (definitely the one where he sprinted from the top of the key to swat it that led to the Timberlake pullup at the free throw line at the other end) but I'm not sure those guys knew what a block and a charge was. The charge on Holden (I think) in the 2nd half was nowhere close to that. But again, officials want to show off for the cameras so they'll call a charge every time. It's weird to say this but I didn't even notice Nolan wasn't there. Totally forgot about him. I guess that's how good these guys were tonight in the first half with the ball movement and making the extra pass to get open looks. For once, we actually knocked down those open looks. 18 assists on 28 FG, which is an insane ratio for this team. Rizzuto certainly looked healthy out there and it was nice to see Holden not hunting his shot and getting everyone else set up. He could have easily had a triple-double tonight. I can't understand for the life of me why Senderhoff got out of the zone in the 2nd half. He popped that out with about 10-12 minutes left and we had 2-3 possessions where we didn't have much of a clue. Then he went back to man and we dissected them again. I wasn't a fan of the big guys doubling at the top of the key (really, Biekeu with that foul 40 feet away from the basket?) because then it had us scrambling on defensive rotations and too many times, we left shooters open or the post guy open (which Thompson erased/fouled in a big spot). Also wish that Parr was more aggressive in looking for his shot. A couple of times in the 2nd half, he had 7-8 footers in the lane but instead decided to pass it out and ended up throwing it away both times. Still not all that impressed with he or Thompson at the offensive end in taking it to the basket thru contact and drawing fouls instead of getting manhandled down there. That weak stuff will definitely not fly with what Ohio State brings in their front line on Wednesday night. Really good team win. Got a little nervy there with 6:00 left but they got a couple of clutch shots (Gray loves that corner 3) and the defense ratcheted up to shut down Kent State. A split in Ohio was what we were looking for on this trip and we've guaranteed that.

Team played hard but fell in 4 sets. Got off to a terrible start in Set 1, down 10-1 right off the bat. Rallied back in Set 2 and finished it off with an insane rally illustrated in the tweet above. Sets 3 and 4, Penn State just showed off their skills -- better hitting, better defense and blocking. We just made a few too many errors which against a team like that, you can't afford. But a great fight out of the ladies and they never folded the tent because it would have been very easy to do so after that first set.

Game is on ESPN+ at 4pm today.

Got an up close look at the Chickens againt Temple. They’re very beatable. Nelson, Anderson, and Painter are their main cogs (0, 1, and 42). Temple woke up and took them to the basket the entire second half and had them on their heels and outrebounded UD in crucial spots. I think once we get to them, we’ll be pretty polished that we can get them in both games if we play aggressively at the other end. Anderson, though, is like Bouyea from SF - tosses it up from everywhere and it goes in. Nelson is taller than his dad and he had a double-double.