Chris Datres

If you want a Towson equivalent elsewhere in the country, head to the home of Corporal Klinger.  Toledo has had Tod Kowalczyk since 2010 and they've had 8 20-win seasons in his tenure there.  But in the MAC Tournament, that's where the terror happens.  They've at least made 3 conference championship games but they've gone into the last *4* conference tournaments as the 1 seed.  Today, as the 1 seed, they got whacked by Kent State, a team they had beaten by 14 & 15 in the regular season.  They extend their Tournament-less streak to 44 years (one of 61 schools who have not been there since we were last there, though almost half those have barely been in D1).

They lost so many years of progress after the attempted purge that they weren't able to build on their CAA Title win (where have we heard this before in this athletic department?).  What recruit of any significance in the subsequent 5 years was going to come to us with all of that financial mayhem going on?  You wanna talk about tearing it down to the studs, I think we tore this program down to the concrete pourings.

5 hours ago, TSU88 said:

I’m ok with going the D2, JUCO, NAIA route, provided we’re not talking Sylaa and/or Suliaman 2.0.  Hasn’t C of C had great results going this route? 

They have and that's because their coach is able to cultivate that talent and assimilate it within the team he has.  We bring in a POY and an All-American in consecutive years and their play here makes you wonder how in the world they earned those awards.

3 hours ago, omniland said:

There are approximately 362 division 1 basketball programs.  You need very few players on a basketball team, unlike in football, to make a splash in a particular year (a splash is not a championship).  Who knows how NIL  will shake out but I can’t see how a program like Towson will benefit.  The resources just are not there.  Be careful what you wish for in dismissing Skerry and the players you guys are mentioning.  Every coach for those 362 programs wants to keep their job and fights like hell to pick off players and scrambles up whatever resources they can to pull this player from here and this player from there. Is there any doubt that the corruption of the last 40 years with essentially the same division FBS football teams dominating each and every year was not a coincidence?  The same teams don’t win for that long because they just have a great coach.  They buy mother’s a new home and they buy family new vehicles and many other ways.  Now NIL is expanding the corruption and schools like Alabama know that the gravy train is over and Alabama will lose players they never would have lost in the past for the foreseeable future. 

My point is, is that no one knows how this will shake out because we are in the wild wild west stage.  Money is being thrown all over the place and I don’t know who you are going to bring in here that is going to be able to satisfy you guys in this type of environment for any extended period of time, because I think it can easily get substantially worse for a program like Towson.  The days of complaining that we need this type of player or a coach that understands this or that, I think may be over because it just may not matter more than who can pay off the most players.  I don’t believe you can get a Gary Neal, Jerrelle Benimon and Terrance West to come to Towson or certainly stay.   Those days seem to be over.  You may get lucky and get this kid to come here and the team then has a decent year but Towson dominating in the CAA seems highly unlikely and not because of Skerry.  I’m not sure Skerry hasn’t done a heck of a job so far.  I look at that Delaware performance against Hofstra.  Just a terrible display of basketball from a school that has a lot more resources than us and I wonder what you guys would say about the Delaware coach if you were fans?  They got smoked by an average Hofstra team when it mattered.  That game was not competitive.

I certainly wouldn’t want to coach in college sports in this environment and I think a lot of veteran coach's agree with me.  If you are a young coach and doesn't have money you join the corruption because that is the current system.  You keep moving from program to program seeking out a place that has more resources.  Resources are going to convince young coaches to take a job.  Experienced coaches that have made their money are going to retire.

You bring up good points about the economics of the landscape and they’re not fun ones.  But if the bought talent gets hamstrung by an archaic offense and questionable (being nice) decisions during winning time, who cares what the NIL war chest is.  Look at how SB handled the final 3 mins in their upset bid.  They played to win and got on a wave.  We played not to lose.  That’s a mindset and that’s bad coaching.  Do you think Samford and Morehead are overflowing with NIL funds?  Their conference competition is maybe a tick below ours but they figured out a way to get it done.  We’ve had better teams than this fail at this spot.  When May’s 3 banked in, I thought it funny that this group would be the one that finally broke through.  And then, all of the intelligence drained. 

16 minutes ago, mat1992 said:

Williamson may not be the alpha dog but he’s the best we’ve had in awhile. He should have started with Tarke or instead of Tarke. I know he plays starters minutes but I think one of tbe most important parts of the game is the opening of the second half. 

Yep, and that goes to having the wrong personnel on the floor.  DW is one of the few offensive bright spots in the first half and yet, Tarke is out there for the first 3 minutes of the 2nd half -- just long enough for him to unnecessarily cheat on defense and leave his man open in the lane for an easy bucket.  When Tarke is on it, he's pretty good.  But when he's been bad in games -- and we've seen plenty of Bad Tarke -- it's a hilarious disaster.  Like, stop shooting dude, they're leaving you open for a reason.

Isn't that always how it works out?  If we're able to pull off the win, we'd have had a better shot in the championship.  

When you're the better team, you should win that game.  We were the better team tonight and the defense against those snipers was on point...for 36 minutes.  When May banked in the 3 to put us up 7, I thought that was a sign.  But when we got the stop at the other end and decided to go into clockball with 4 minutes left, I knew we were in trouble.  This is a choke of epic proportions that puts every one of our past disappointments in the conference tournament down a peg.  I have no idea why in the world you wouldn't just keep running your offense and working the ball down low to CT with that 7-point lead.  Oh wait, I know.  It's because we have a choking tactician on the sidelines.  How man free throws did we shoot tonight?  7.  Shameful.  As soon as we got that 7-point lead, that was the time to run the offense thru Charles and force Charleston to either collapse and open up a shooter or get him to the free throw line.  He had finally figured it out in the lane in the first half and yet only had 2 points in the 2nd half (while also committing a couple of insanely dumb fouls for anyone, let alone a 5th year senior).  But instead, freakin Paar is in the game and DW is out there on an island all by himself with no one coming to the ball.  Then we gotta chuck up crap at the shot clock horn when we hadn't done that the entire game.  Tarke should have been stapled to the bench after the first 10 minutes of the game when he showed that he was gonna be Bad Tarke and throw up a bunch of crazy crap around the rim.  He did NOTHING tonight.  But he could have made it all better if he flushes that breakaway layup.  Nope, that was too much to ask of him.  Weak.  This also points to the lack of player development and regression we've seen throughout the season out of a lot of players.  Who got better as the season went on?  DW, Tejada (though still an enigma at times), and that's about it.  I'd put Lowery on the positive side too but he needs to get tons better at the offensive end.  I love his defense and his activity on the boards.  

So now the elephant in the room.  I'm done with Skerry.  Great guy, keeps his players out of trouble (for the most part), graduates them, gets them opportunity post-college.  But he's hit his ceiling.  You have to be a winning coach in this situation when you're up by 7 with 4:00 left against the best team in the conference.  You can't have offensive liabilities on the floor during that time.  You have to realize that certain players don't have it tonight and make sure they don't continue to hurt you.  But most of all, you have to make your players better as the season goes on.  The player development over the last couple of years has been lacking.  I can't count the number of times I've watched a big man this year take it soft to the basket and miss layups.  That should be corrected in the summer, not allowed to fester throughout the entire year.  He's brought in a pair of D2 All-Americans in the last 2 years and both players looked like they wouldn't make a roster of any D1 team in the country.  Worst of all, we still try to win games via the caveman era.  We haven't evolved with how the game has evolved.  And yet, when we needed to go to that in the last 4 minutes, the wrong personnel is on the floor and the wrong gameplan is called out.  This is a shameful choke.

We've done so well with me not being able to watch or listen to the game live that I think I'll do it again for the semifinal game too unless it rains here which is not in the forecast.

Impressive effort by the freshmen to carry the day, especially Williamson.  Big step up by Tarke to sort of jumpstart things in the 2nd half and get us rolling.  The 3-pt defense since the 12:00 mark of the 2nd half vs W&M has been very impressive.  That'll be ultra necessary against Charleston as they'll whip it around the perimeter like they did against us in the home game.  Only way we're gonna beat them is if we keep up this same defensive effort and if we shoot like we did at their place.  Charleston's that white whale that for the most part we haven't been able to take down in a big spot.  We've proven they're beatable.  Just have to play that same game from January.

Oh, and that's another 20-win season.  Of course, there will be those who will foolishly place asterisks on it and that's their agenda.  Would you prefer the consistent 20-loss seasons from 1998-2011?

There are 29 teams who haven’t reached a conference championship game since the last time we did in 92.  Over half are new to D1 in the last 3-4 years. 

1 hour ago, Bay Area Tiger said:

I’m sure they all know Romar not coming back.  Like rats fleeing the ship!  Who can’t recruit players to Malibu 😃

Yeah, that was announced a couple days ago.  That Pepperdine-Pacific WCC opener will be the battle of the interim coaches.

There was a small piece of schadenfreude last night when ODU lost in OT on the first day of their conference tournament to finish the season 7-25.  For any of the other old-schoolers besides Mat and I from the ollllllld CAAZone days, we took a beating from the ODU fanbase among others for how bad we were.  They're a good example that the grass isn't always greener as they've only been to 1 Tourney since they left CAA whereas they had been to 4 in the 9 years before leaving.  

1 hour ago, omniland said:

Play May and Tejada at the same time.  You have to have more than one guy on the floor that teams are concerned about from 3.  We are a poor 3 point team no doubt but you have to try something different on offense to get decent outside shots or just give up the season.  You have the dominate inside game with Jones, Suliaman and Thompson but you can't just trade 2's for 3's against every good team.  The defense and rebounding and the inside game can win against the middle tier and the bottom but it is not enough against the top of the CAA.  Those teams eventually pull away.

This would make too much sense, why would you ever present this idea for Towson basketball??  (sarcasm)

Our offense often belongs in the peach basket era, especially in these higher-stakes games.  We can come out against A&T or Monmouth at home or Arcadia and swing the ball around like an offense should and look like world beaters.  But when we get into the butt clenchers, we revert to this archaic, dump-it-in-the-post style that hasn't worked since Benimon was dominating.  Too many times today, the ball stagnated.  No switching sides or working it inside out.  In the chat, I equated Tarke to that guy at the Y who you always leave open because you know he's gonna shoot it and he's likely gonna miss it.  Gosh, he was open so many times today and he just clanks one after another.  But if you have a lineup of DW, Tejada, May, CT, and either Suli or Jones, you have a ballhandler who has to be monitored for drives, 2 guys who can light it up from outside (theoretically) that you can't help off of and 2 guys who can gather the rebounds on missed shots and be somewhat of a force in the lane.  But this goes back too many times to constant substitutions and never getting a good mix on the floor.  There were a few times today where the lineup was Tarke, Lowery, Tejada, Paar, and Suli.  Where do you think the defense is going to key?  It almost feels like sometimes that we put lineups on the floor like a rec league coach would in order to make the parents happy that their kids get into the game.  In the first 5-7 games of the non-con season, I can understand it.  But now, there's no excuse for it.  

As for next week, I'd imagine we'll get one since it'll be either A&T or W&M but after that, I have zero confidence that we'll learn anything from today's game to beat UNCW a 2nd time.

6 hours ago, Moleman1 said:

Regarding Spiro's 2023-24 MBb broadcasts, especially as we anxiously focus on end of season / post-season success is the color commentary. I for one am happy the last two games did NOT have Jimmy Patsos giving his 99¢ worth. I tried to endure the relentless jabbering, but ultimately gave up and switched to the stat feed to keep up w what's going on. When Jimmy P commandeers the mic during action, it causes Spiro's PBP to lock up - silenced! ( also sounds like actor Charles McGraw from "Hang 'em High", but I digress). We've had good color guys in the past for teams incl Glen Smith (MLax) and Gordy Combs (football) that gave Spiro the space needed. 

Amen to this.  It's one thing when you can see the game and you have to endure his soundtrack.  But for those of us  that go audio only, it's nearly impossible to follow the game.  If you run a drinking game for all the names he drops, you'll have to call the ambulance by the under-12 timeout in the 2nd half.

As for this game against UNCW, it can be considered a 'big game' due to the top 4 being at stake.  We know what our history is in these type of 'big games'.  It would be nice to buck our trend and play a complete 40 to get what we need for the CAA Tournament.

Drexel-Delaware right now.  Besides structural failure, what do we root for here?

49 minutes ago, TSU88 said:

Is part of the problem the assistant coaches?  I have no idea which of them would be considered a good big’s coach. Are any of them good at helping improve shooting efficiency? I understand that assistant’s are often there for recruiting purposes. I was curious about the guy they hired from Coppin. Maybe he’s a super assistant, but I can’t help but wonder if there weren’t better options out there 

Where have you gone, Luke Murray.  Towson turns its lonely eyes to you. 
(he might make a good head coach candidate)

45 minutes ago, TSU88 said:

Let me put this to everyone…who would you want back next year, of those who played this season? (Thus not counting Watson). As for me, it’s a very short list…DWill, Lowery and Tejada. As for May, while I won’t be rooting for him to leave, if he does, I won’t lose a wink of sleep 

What will be telling is if someone transfers out, how do they perform at their new school.  That will be the biggest indictment.  I think everyone on this roster has talent and collectively, they should be contenders.  But their overall development has not matured like it should.  Charles has regressed offensively.  Sulaiman and Jones have not gotten an ounce better from day 1.  May’s breakout at the end of last year should have been a springboard to filling Timberlake’s shoes.  This isn’t just a this year problem either.  We had a big man whose name escapes me that played 5-6 yrs ago who had promise as a youngster but kept making the same mistakes with bad hedges and softness offensively in the lane and he went from being a potential future star as a freshman to a player we weren’t sad to see graduate.  It’s not difficult to see the correlation. 

Today was the largest glaring example of what works in college basketball and what doesn't.  You can hang your shingle on defense and rebounding but you'd better have offensive weapons in order to do that.  The years we won the conference regular season and advanced in the CIT, we had guys that could score.  You have to go out and find more of those scorers and not just a bunch of brutes that look good in a weight room and can play defense and rebound.  Kelsey took the job at Charleston and set about finding the type of players that work -- they're big, they share the ball, they hit open shots.  Meanwhile, we plod along and run a low-post offense with zero movement and sometimes a wing and a prayer to get a decent look or a look before the shot clock expires.  Twice today, the shot clock was running out and who had the ball?  Mekhi Lowery.  That can't ever happen.  We were largely clueless on offense, finding zero ways to get Tejada open (1 shot in the first half) and showing very little interest in running anything that had ball movement to 3 sides of the floor.  Meanwhile, Charleston is slinging it all over the floor and playing an orchestra on our defense (especially Thompson and Paar) with the pick-and-roll action.  Charleston's the template of what we should aspire to be.  They have D2 players just like we do but they found the offense while we went for the bruising fullbacks.  With whatever time Pat has left on his contract, he needs to overhaul his philosophy to be more like Charleston.  Otherwise, we've already hit our ceiling and it's never gonna get crashed through.

I’d be hesitant about SulaiJones on Policelli because of his penchant to hang around the perimeter and shoot 3s.  Those two guys don’t seem quick enough to get out on a shooter.  Long enough, yes, but can they anticipate it like they should?  Almost think Tejada on Policelli might be a better option than on Burnham cuz Burnham can out-physical him.  As much as we showed it last nite, I don’t know if we can try a high-octane game again vs CoC but if we keep them below 65, I like our chances. 

Who would be a good defensive matchup for him vs Charleston?

This is more like it.  Given the lives we’ve led as fans of this program, I will never take a winning season for granted.  But if some want to continue putting asterisks on wins, so be it.  I didn’t see or hear any of the game.  Got back to the car and saw the score and smiled.  This is building block #1 and it’s great they were able to flush Saturday’s performance.  Now go finish the home season strong on Saturday.  That one I ain’t missing. 

I was one of those 1900 in attendance that night and I remember that JMU seemed to have more people rooting for them than we did people rooting for us.  Truax's teams were at least entertaining even though they could be frustrating as hell.  He'd schedule anybody anywhere and the majority of the time, they'd hold their own.  Just in my time of Towson awareness, they beat St. John's (year before I got there), West Virginia, and Louisville and they went to places like Arizona, Tennessee, and Virginia and didn't embarrass themselves.  That was a product of the type of ball that he ran.  I wasn't a fan of his firing and that seemed to be the result of a new AD wanting to put his stamp on the program.  That led to one bad hire after another that culminated with the abyss that Pat Kennedy put us in.  So there's a small history lesson for those young enough to not have had to suffer though the Jaskulski/Hunt eras.  

What Pat Skerry has done with the foundation he was given is very commendable.  At some point (and that point could have come as soon as 5-7 years ago), the level has to improve.  Since the last time we went to the Tournament, we're one of 18 teams that haven't even played in their conference championship game (the others -- Army, Central Arkansas, Citadel, Incarnate Word, UMKC, UMES, UNH, Presbyterian, Sacramento State, SIU-Edwardsville, UC Riverside, UTRGV, Utah Valley, Brown, Columbia, Rice, Dartmouth).  In Skerry's time, we've had 2 teams that were beyond capable of not just advancing to the Final but also winning it.  But as happens in conference tournaments, a bad shooting night can sink your entire season and we've lived that.  Rather than being able to continue to raise our level from those teams, we regress and it seems that we don't want to adjust our systems.  It's ok to make your mark on defense and rebounding but you'd better have offensive tools to back that up.  With the exception of the Benimon team and the 2021 team, we've failed to cultivate any offensive skills.  Thus, we win games via smoke and mirrors that may not even crack 60 on the scoreboard.  That's entertaining, huh?  But the biggest mark against us is the lack of improvement with players who obviously have talent but they're either held back by lack of minutes or lack of continued development (or both).  If you didn't know  anything about us and you saw a potential frontline of CT, Sulaiman, and Messiah, you'd think that we could be a pretty formidable offensive team in the lane.  Nope, far from it.  The potential that May showed us at the end of last season only comes in bursts this year.  We have the potential to have a point guard that can engineer a transition game but the governor gets put on because we don't like to push the pace.  

There's 4 regular season games left.  There's zero reason why we shouldn't go 4-0 in those games.  This conference doesn't have that dominant boss at the final screen that it's had in past seasons.  If Elon can win at Trask, we certainly can too.  Somehow, we need to flush last week's offensive effort and use these last 4 games to ramp up for the tournament run.  But I've also been beaten down by decades of failure so winning games in a big spot are more of a surprise.  I let myself believe that 2021 was finally going to be the year and I was treated harshly for the belief.  

TL;DR -- I'm annoyed that we're living the Groundhog Day of college basketball.

The idea does have a lot of merit.  If this were 10 years ago, heck even 5 years ago, I might not have thought as much about it.  But this is a new era where you don't build a program with longevity.  With the portal and NIL being what it is, it's essentially a free agent world whenever the season ends.  AD's will have to be smarter about the way they structure contracts (I've always thought that the immense buyouts given for firing are very irresponsible) and perhaps their philosophies need to evolve where they think more like an owner of a professional team rather than collegiate athletics.  In a '5-year world', the coaches will have much more of an urgency to get results rather than biding their time to get 'their guys' in the fold.  

2 hours ago, TSU88 said:

He’s played in 1 game for NM State, logging 6 minutes, with 0 points. Another brilliant recruiting decision by our staff. 
 

Tore his Achilles in those 6 minutes.

https://twitter.com/SamGuzmanTV/status/1742658134903009601?s=20

This conference is a real box of chocolates, isn't it?  It probably explains why a lot of the Bracketologies have the potential conference champion in the 14-15 hole.

Two other examples of regressing -- Sylla and Sulaiman.  Sylla was a player of the year and yet he came in and looked lost.  Sulaiman averaged a smidge under a double-double at IUP and while he's shown flashes of brilliance, his overall stat profile is a fraction of what it was and/or what it could be.  Perhaps if he was given a bigger workload of minutes.

But then, I read somewhere that we weren't supposed to complain about substitution patterns.  😉