Chris Datres

https://towsontigers.com/news/2018/9/15/football-scores-35-straight-points-knocks-off-10-10-villanova-45-35.aspx

Lots to work on defensively but offensively, we saw just how good this machine and this QB can be when the o-line is sturdy.  They were sturdy for most of the game today and that's a giant kick in the ass to start CAA season.

I watched a decent amount of their game against Tulane last week.  It was a pretty sluggish game offensively from both teams.  Couldn't tell whether it was just bad execution or the defenses were decent.  I tend to lean toward the former.  Wake's QB is not afraid to run (think of that dude from Villanova who I refuse to spell) and he loves going to his favorite WR, Dortch.  Our defense is going to have to be on high alert in order to stay with these guys.  But, it'll be a good tune-up for when we have to play Nova the next week.

9 hours ago, mat1992 said:

Also, we need to finish drives better and it starts with the play-calling inside the 5. I don't mind throwing fades to Clark who is 6-6 or one of the Jabari's but the throw to Gallahan, it appears they were not on the same page after Flacco faked it. I think you have to use your hammer and that's Yeedee in short-yardage. We didn't have the last season or you run Shane or Kobe on the perimter. You can also use Flacco on keepers but he's been getting pounded all night. Tom also holds onto the ball for a long time, extending the play, which is cool but he also takes more hits that way.

When he has time, he lets the play develop and throws a terrific intermediate pass. Something I haven't seen in many years. Enders was good at that as well though I think Flacco's arm was better. But they do have some similarities.

The 4th down call on the goal line at the end of the 2nd quarter was abysmal.  Go for it, yes, but don't run that misdirectional crap on the 1-yard line...not with an above-average offensive line.  We had a series with 2nd and 1 and 3rd and 1 on consecutive plays and we're throwing slants.  Keep it basic, get the first down, and extend drives.  I don't care if you have Manute Bol as a wide receiver, the fade from inside the 10 yard line is one of the worst plays in the game.  You're often throwing against 3 defenders (the live one and the 2 out of bounds lines) and there's too much that has to be perfect (placement, arc, receiver able to outjump defender) for it to work.  Oh yeah, and the receiver has to make sure to come down with the ball and hang on when he hits the ground.  I'd be totally fine with taking that goal line fade completely out of the playbook.

Excellent way to start the season.  I thought Flacco looked pretty comfortable back there and he seems to stand tall in the pocket and exudes a bit of confidence that we haven't had under center the last 2 seasons.  And as stated earlier in August, if the offensive line is looking good, our attack is going to look good.  I thought the o-line played really well tonite and we could have put 50 on the board if we had pounded the ball a bit more behind that line instead of some questionable passing plays.

3 hours ago, Tigerone94 said:

Game's not being promoted very well by Towson U.  Whomever has access to tweet for @TowsonU doesn't even know the football team's twitter handle!  Good luck to the Towson HS Generals in the big match up.  Brings back memories of the band being announced on national TV as Towson HS for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.  The neighbors heard me yell at the TV that morning.

 

Yeah, that TV info needs to be blanketed across all available social media.  I only learned about it through an Ambrose tweet.  If someone in Marketing would have been using some foresight, maybe a watch party on the Jumbotron at the U might have been a good idea (it was good enough for a movie night during the summer).  What are they doing to get this year's crop of apathetic students engaged in athletics?  I think I may know the answer.

It's unfortunate that I'm stuck working a tournament that weekend because it would be such an easy trip for me to make.  If you're looking for a team to face with our evolving lineup, Pepperdine seems to be the best one for that.  They were 6-26 last year and have a ton of freshmen and sophomores like we do.

If Rob is happy with the offensive line, that's a very good thing to hear.  Too many times in the past couple of down years, we've had a below-average offensive line and that just kills the running game and has your QB running for his life and making bad decisions under fire.

Hard to wish any luck to a kid that sounds selfish like that. 

Virginia at JPJ is the first game of the season.  

Good luck, godspeed...and I'd prefer not to hear about them anymore.  Turn the page and look forward to what we have on the roster who do want to be here and hopefully take us to heights we haven't seen in over 25 years.

You're certainly right that this wasn't a tournament team this year.  One of the stats I checked out prior to the game was EMOs and found that the disparity between how much we scored versus how much we let up was pretty big.  I don't know what the median is for lacrosse as a whole but I've gotta think that scoring less than 30% of the time you're a man-up is a big crutch for your offense.

I respect Coach for sticking to his guns and instilling the discipline on the team.  Hope those who got dinged learned their lesson and can get it back for next season.

We certainly do know how to make it interesting.  Too bad that the game has to be put on a subscription stream but Spiro is an excellent alternative.  With the Penguins also playing at the same time tonite, there was way too much sports stress in my living room.

2 hours ago, griggey20 said:

The reason UD got ND at home is due to the fact they celebrated the 1998 Hens team that made the tourney and wanted Brey there. 

And with former Irish player Martin Inglesby as a coach, it was probably an easier sell, too.  

I've been told that we're leading off with Virginia at JPJ next season.  If so, see if we can increase the Cavs losing streak vs. Baltimore teams to 2.

That offense was beyond brutal.  At times, I was wondering if we were even going to shoot the ball.  There was one sequence early in the 4th quarter I think where we had the ball on the right wing side and he messed around with the ball and before you knew it, he was swarmed by one player and he just lost the ball.  It's almost like they have zero confidence in their own offensive game and no one wants to fire anything at the net unless they're wide open.  Our defense has been playing pretty well and not allowing a lot of goals, it's just too bad that the offense hasn't progressed one bit from the beginning of the season.  And yes, the suspensions are a big part of that.

1 hour ago, TSU88 said:

I suppose this is a rhetorical question, but what school is going to take ZM, knowing that he’s declared for the NBA draft, and thus might not even be around in the fall? Just because we know he ain’t getting drafted doesn’t necessarily mean he’s going to withdraw his name

He has until May 31 I think to withdraw his name.  I can't imagine that any school is going to seriously look at him until then.  If he doesn't withdraw his name, then he's off to the Mongolian League.

Does Gorham think he's gonna play at a decent P5 and be a significant contributor?  Hahahaha, that's pretty funny.  He was making strides but he'll get eaten alive in most of the P5 leagues.  Again, good luck and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.  I'd much rather start a season with a totally new slate than a bunch of low basketball IQ, me-first, bickering scrubs.  As far as the bickering goes, that is a smack in the face of leadership...leadership by the coaches and leadership by the seniors.  Eddie was at the forefront of the bickering because every single call that went against him, he had that whiny look on his face.  Morsell was too quiet to be a leader and Starr had enough problems bringing the ball up to be a leader.  When you don't have any leaders on the floor like a JD was to get the troops together, then the cancer is only going to grow.  That ultimately was our downfall this past season.

Welcome to 2018 and the onslaught of the 'me-first' generation.  That's just the way college basketball is nowadays with the absurd amount of transfers that are out there.  I get it, they think they're bettering themselves and you can't fault a kid for doing that.  You'd jump ship from your job if you thought you had a better opportunity elsewhere.  But if their ultimate goal is to get to the NBA, they'll find you under a rock if you're good enough to catch their attention.  The grass isn't always greener and if Zane's move is to go to a different college, there's nothing that says that he'll be the big fish that he was starting to become at Towson.  If his move is to go pro, well, have fun in the Netherlands or Lithuania because the only way he's getting to the NBA is with a ticket.  If he doesn't want to be here, then don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out.

As for what this says about Skerry, I agree that it doesn't look good to have so many recruits under  his watch that have departed prior to going a full 4 years.  But in no way do I think it's a recipe for him to get let go as one or more prominent posters here campaign for.  Recruiting is such a goshdarn crapshoot, especially at our level.  We'd all love to have the resources to recruit 5 stars on a yearly basis.  Skerry's created a style of play and he has tried to find players to match that style.  Unfortunately, what he's thought is the right personnel has turned out to be below what he hoped.  So he goes to work on changing it up.  And if the players he gets end up not wanting to be here, then they're free to go but maybe they should think twice before signing on the dotted line if they're all of a sudden going to get disgruntled.

I'll reiterate what I had said in a previous thread -- send someone from marketing to Grand Canyon University and get some ideas from them on how they turn their basketball games into a showcase.  They've been in D1 for 5-6 years now and they almost sell the place out every night and students are in their seats whooping it up an hour before gametime.  GCU is located in a bigger city footprint than we are (Phoenix vs. Baltimore) and their arena seats more than SECU.  Find out some of the tricks they use out there and see if it's feasible to implement them at SECU.  GCU's biggest basketball crowd was for....wait for it...the Kangaroos of UMKC.

5 minutes ago, TuTigers2012 said:

I disagree, I believe he does hang his hat on those wins.. the "champs of greater Baltimore" as athletics likes to market that crap.  We own Morgan/Loyola/UMBC/Coppin?? Yawn what has been their records. They are bad programs and we should beat them more often than not.  We squeaked by morgan in football last year.   

I'm gonna hate reading what you have to say if we were to lose to one of those 4 teams.

This is a common practice for a lot of players who are a year away from really being a potential draftee.  They go to the combine, get the feedback from the scouts and teams as to what they need to improve on during their next college season and then they come back.  Doing this without an agent is obviously the key.  So I wouldn't read too much into this right now.  If he hired an agent, well then that would be a much bigger deal.

I listened to the last 35 minutes of this game and was shocked that we were in this game given the total faceoff domination by Denver.  I think that says a lot about how much progress our defense and goaltending has made since the beginning of the season.  Didn't seem to be as many turnovers as we've been dealing with, just needed to get more possessions.  One stop in OT could have been the difference like it was at Ohio State.

So if I had told you 3 weeks ago that we'd have the lead in the 4th quarter in all 3 of these games, 2 would have gone to OT, and we'd win one of them, what kind of odds might I have gotten?  I've gotta think this bodes well for the conference season.  However, since we only capitalized on the Ohio State opportunity, we're probably going to have to win the conference tournament again to get into the playoffs.

They were within 1 or 3 of K State for 6 or 7 minutes and they couldn't buy a bucket.  They gave in to the epidemic throughout college basketball today of getting into the lane and then pitching it out instead of pulling up for a nice 12-foot jumper.  Instead, they're chucking 3s.  Great effort but it was certainly there for them tonite.

The turnovers this far into the season are becoming maddening.  And yet, they storm back to take the lead and then they sort of wheeze out on offense.  Hitting that pipe wasn't helpful either.  The defense and goaltending continues to get better but it still feels like the offense is spinning its tires.

Whenever Charleston threw the ball away, I kept asking where this kind of play was against us this year.  They had that game won if they would have stopped playing like morons.

Don’t be so sure of that.  Buffalo likes to run and they have a bunch of seniors.  I think they give those Kentucky youngsters fits like they did with Arizona.