Fobbs leads MBB over UMBC, 77-71 (story)

[mat1992 2,231]

 https://towsontigers.com/news/2019/12/10/mens-basketball-fobbs-career-scoring-night-leads-towson-past-umbc.aspx

http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=282548

 I'll have comments below. No real comments on this one. I'll just do the Good and Bad (no ugly).

Good

Brian Fobbs desperately needed this. He had 32 points last year against UMBC in their overtime win and had a career-high 33 in this one. While you can say he owns UMBC, he made 7 of 9 from three-point range. I don't think he made seven threes combined this season. Towson made 10 of 22 so basically it was a bit like last season. A lot of Fobbs and a little Nakye Sanders (15pts, 8rebs). Also, the zone defense late in the game helped. Towson was also +9 rebounding.

Bad

Where do we start. The first half was a mess. UMBC took us apart in the post. Apparently, we were so focused on slowing them down from three-point range, we could defend them down low. That improved in the second half. UMBC shot 52% from the field and nearly 60% in the first half. The offense was dreadful, esp. in the first half. No flow. Waited for Fobbs or Betrand at the end of the shotclock to try and create. They did a pretty job defending overall and the post. 

Betrand had a rough game. He did hit a three in the second half but was 1-5 from three-point and 2-for-9. We need more from him than just six points in 28 minutes. Gray had just five points in 24 minutes. He missed several near the rim and he's obviously not comfortable near the post with contact. But he had a HUGE and-one (missed the FT) on a nice drive. He showed me something I haven't seen from him and that's the ability to drive. Maybe against power forwards, though he played a little small forward with Fobbs at the 2. That's basically because Betrand and Timberlake were ineffective. 

Point guard play. Towson is going nowhere without better play from the point guard spot. Have to be blunt. It's not just good. Gibson did a nice job though managing the game when he was in there on offense with three assists and no turnovers. Had a nice dime to Thompson for a dunk. But he has to score some. Seems like when he gives the ball to Fobbs, he runs away to the other side of the floor. Dottin also had a nice drive but five points is not enough. For him though, it's fine because he's not forcing shots and he had three assists with just one turnover. Timberlake picked up two quick fouls, missed both shots and went scoreless in 11 minutes. Again, needs to get the ball to the rim. I thought he was much more aggressive on offense last year and maybe suffering two injuries in less than a year has him playing tentatively.

Finally, I think this team desperately needs to get more in transition. They have the athletes. They need to push the pace. Force more turnovers. Maybe after a 10-day rest, we come up with some more ways to force them.

 

[TSU88 1,070]

Major props to Fobbs, who put the team on his back, which is a good thing, seeing as no one else, except Sanders, scored in double figures.  
 

For a big (6’8 or so), Gray is soft. But he will occasionally have good scoring numbers. Tonight was not one of those nights though. 
 

I will say this for our PG’s-I believe they combined for 6 assists with very few TO’s. Is it time to be concerned though about Gibson, who has now gone 3 straight games without scoring a single point. His shots aren’t even close. Add in Timberlake, who couldn’t throw a beach ball in the ocean right now. 
 

Kudo’s to Sanders. On offense, he’s taking the ball to the rim and finishing, and hitting the boards on D. Team is much better with him on the court.

Keep in mind that UMBC was playing without its leading scorer tonight. They’ve got some nice pieces, including former W&M G LJ Owens & that kid Kennedy looked really good tonight; a slasher who got to the rim at will at times tonight, and finished. 

 

 

Edited December 11, 2019 by TSU88

[mat1992 2,231]

Skerry opening comment

We're thrilled to get a win. I'm really proud of our seniors. I thought Nakye really settled us down. We made some mental errors tonight. Some of that is a credit to UMBC. We made some errors and then we settled in during the last five minutes. He was really good at timeouts of correcting guys. They need that. There's a lot of reasons why this group could have cracked tonight. Last Sunday, we went up to Ithaca (Cornell), got a game cancelled on us. Played a hostile environment at Morgan and won. Then played a good Vermont team where our first-time chartered flight got cancelled on Friday. We arrived on Saturday at 12:30 right before the game. We fought like heck for 30 minutes and couldn't get it done so there's a lot of reasons why we buckled and we didn't against another good team. That's going to bode well for us. Nakye was really good. Dennis was really good. It's good to get Brian going. He's a great player, a great worker. Great teammate. He just focused on the little things and the ball went in the basket. We get 10 days off and we need that.

On first half

I think we scored early and we got away from it. This could be a really good team. We're not there yet. We have to have more willingness individually to stick to the script. Part of it, not to make excuses for these guys, but 4th game in 12 days. You try going up and getting a game cancelled in the snow. You try going to take a charter up and you don't tell your guys to 11:30pm at night because they keep telling you it's a go and then you go again the next morning. It was a trying week. We didn't talk about that in practice or timeouts or huddles. It is what it is. We'll settle back down and they're good. They're committed defensively (UMBC). I like that our guys collectively found a way to get it done. We wouldn't have done that a year ago.

On their post offense doing well

I'll take the hit on that. We were so focused on them making threes that it's probably my fault getting us to dig in more there. Give them credit, they have a good team.

On zone

We do practice zone a lot. Deep down, I don't want to go zone. But we've gotten better and I'm not as stubborn. That clearly helped us tonight.

Fobbs on his game

"Being focused. I can say about every coach at Towson talked to me and said 'relax and just play the game.' My teammates just said be you. Especially Nakye. We would just walk around and he'd say 'just be you.  You can score, relax and just be you.'  That was really encouraging."

"Just relaxing and playing my game. Not worrying about what other people are saying. Sticking to the script and trying to win. When we are focused on winning, everything is (easier).

Skerry

We played a top 70 schedule nationally. That means some teams are pretty good. They are trying to do a good job too. That's why we are playing an aggressive schedule and it only gets more aggressive moving forward. Give the other teams credit. We're playing some good clubs."

Sanders on Fobbs' product

The court is going to open up for me and the bigs. It can help me going. When I see my man Fobbsy going, it gets everybody up.

We played a tough schedule so I played a lot of bigger guys. It made me more aggressive going to the boards and down low.

Skerry on younger guys

Could be my fault, probably should have played them more. Good, bad or indifferently, I tend to rely on my older guys. All three of our freshmen are really good and have had their moments. We're going to need them to win our league. I went with Juwan. He gave us size on the perimeter in the zone. I'm as hard as anybody on Jakigh. He has a toughness to them, in games like that, you need that at times.

On Juwan Gray

He's playing better. I thought he did a good job on Saturday night against a very good player (Lamb). I think he'll eventually make shots. When that happens, it will open up the floor for Brian, Nakye and Allen. Give us a little more balance. I probably need to get more comfortable coaching him. We're settling in on things. For us to be a championship team, it's going to be our depth and our seniors.

On 10 days off

We'll have next two days off. We're going to play a lot in practice. We still have to get better on offense and ball movement. I thoght we had a great practice yesterday. We played hard and will get ready for Dec. 20 in D.C.

[mat1992 2,231]

22 minutes ago, TSU88 said:

Major props to Fobbs, who put the team on his back, which is a good thing, seeing as no one else, except Sanders, scored in double figures.  
 

For a big (6’8 or so), Gray is soft. But he will occasionally have good scoring numbers. Tonight was not one of those nights though. 
 

I will say this for our PG’s-I believe they combined for 6 assists with very few TO’s. Is it time to be concerned though about Gibson, who has now gone 3 straight games without scoring a single point. His shots aren’t even close. Add in Timberlake, who couldn’t throw a beach ball in the ocean right now. 
 

Kudo’s to Sanders. On offense, he’s taking the ball to the rim and finishing, and hitting the boards on D. Team is much better with him on the court.

Keep in mind that UMBC was playing without its leading scorer tonight. They’ve got some nice pieces, including former W&M G LJ Owens & that kid Kennedy looked really good tonight; a slasher who got to the rim at will at times tonight, and finished. 

 

 

I think we just get by UMBC, who didn't have Rogers, because our frontcourt is just a tad better. Their guards are better shooters. That's not saying much, but Owens was a nice pickup for them. We could use a player like that. We rebound the ball. They don't but we allowed them to score in the post. Gibson was giving up some drives and I wonder if his offensive issues are affecting his defense or if teams are just going after him.

Gibson and Dottin right now are struggling to score, but I know we're judging the Vermont game as the end-all-be-all, but I'll say again. We have some shooters. If Fobbs is back and Gray can get more minutes and shots up, you start somewhere. Gibson just needs to run the offense, not turn it over and drive and dish. The shot will be there but the lack of strength is showing and maybe the 10 days off will help him. I think he's one of the guys who wasn't used to that kind of travel. It affected his game. We saw what he could do against GW and Kent State. Hopefully, he can get back to that type of play in D.C. next Friday. He doesn't need to put up 18, but just get a few baskets and create for others. I also think getting out on the break is huge because he can flat out pass.

Betrand to me is the x-factor. He still needs to let the game come to him. Tries to force too many tough shots and I think he's frustrated because he's the guy that also needs players getting him the ball either slashing or standing in the corner. Maybe we need to see more plays for him coming off screens. And when he struggles on offense, I wonder if it affects his defense.

The best thing all night was Fobbs coming out of his slump. But we need a lot more than that because he's not going to get 33 every game. Betrand, Gray and Sanders have to produce offensively for us to have a chance in the CAA. 

 

[mat1992 2,231]

 

[RundaPower 153]

Let’s be honest,  Towson played a terrible game last night.  Back to 4 standing around and watching 1 chuck up a shot as the clock is winding down.  Again, shot selection with time/score show a lack of focus/control and low basketball IQ.  Watch again and again how the ball is turned  the ball over in critical 1 point situations ....UNFORCED ERRORS!  Examples: Timberlake turnover(got caught in the air and had to make a pass to no one) in the Vermont game ......then the wheels fell off.  

Last night,game under 20 seconds (?) with Towson inbounding against a full court press, and FoBbs catches the inbounds (remember he has 33 points and is the best FT shooter on the team) without direct pressure and proceeds to throw a cross court pass the Tunstall ... which is behind him and bounces out of bounds!  Turnover!  That about sums it up for me.

[TuTigers2012 1,061]

Good- We won a close game that really could have went either way. Nice for them to finally close one out.

-Brian played a great game

-Sanders played a great game and showed intensity and passion (something lacking from Towson for a while)

-Dottin played well and showed intensity- Thought he played some good defense

-Switched defenses which atleast slowed them down a bit

Bad- We needed all 40 minutes to put away a bad team at home, without two of their best players.

-The bench. Need way more production from role players, especially at home

-FT shooting, sans Fobbs

-#2 sulking most of the game (I see the JG and ZM frustration brewing in him)

Ugly- Our guys getting worked by the UMBC "bigs" YIKES

-The late game fouls (Dennis is a 5th year senior and should know better!) and that turnover with 14 seconds left!

[TuTigers2012 1,061]

9 hours ago, TSU88 said:

that kid Kennedy looked really good tonight; a slasher who got to the rim at will at times tonight, and finished. 

 

 

He also hit a 3 and turned around and cursed off skerry in the first half🤣

[TTiger2024 63]

Brian Fobbs > James Harden; lol ..... what a game!!!!     seems to be a long break now, any idea why?  and how did Liberty end up on the schedule, seems random? (they seem to be pretty good, havent lost yet).  Bummed out Timberlake hasn't broke out yet (feel like he should/could be 10pts a game????? ) but pumped Fobbs got rolling.....

[RundaPower 153]

23 minutes ago, TTiger2024 said:

Brian Fobbs > James Harden; lol ..... what a game!!!!     seems to be a long break now, any idea why?  and how did Liberty end up on the schedule, seems random? (they seem to be pretty good, havent lost yet).  Bummed out Timberlake hasn't broke out yet (feel like he should/could be 10pts a game????? ) but pumped Fobbs got rolling.....

Long break = final exams