Streak ends at 7; Riller leads CofC over MBB (story)

[mat1992 2,233]

https://towsontigers.com/sports/mens-basketball/stats/2019-20/college-of-charleston/boxscore/15048

https://towsontigers.com/news/2020/2/1/mens-basketball-towson-clipped-by-charleston-again.aspx

Should have known after the women fell at Drexel (another red-hot team) to end their streak at six, our streak was about to fall. Was hoping it was going to be on the road, but this is a team we just can't beat. Riller is just too good for Fobbs or Dottin. He's quicker than both, though I thought Fobbs did a  nice job in the first half, Riller still hit some tough fadeaways. We tried to double him in the second half on drives and he kicked it out to wide open players in the corner. Towson wins this game if the Cougars' "other" guys don't hit shots-but they did. That Sam Miller three that looked short and somehow went in was a huge dagger. Pretty much ball game.

I'll be honest, as great as Riller was, he was probably an A-/B+ for him. Four turnovers for him is rare and a couple of bad fouls. The intentional on Timberlake was a rare mental mistake Give credit to Nick for making both free throws and hell, he nearly threw down one of the greatest ally-oops of an inbounds play in Towson history. It would be nice if we used his hops more often.

Offensively, Towson was awful in the second half. A lot of that had to do with Charleston's defense. They just played up on the shooters and gave very few open looks. To me, we went back to playing the old Towson basketball. Too much one-on-one ISO and not enough extra passes. Fobbs was one of the keys. When he scores 14 or more points, we were 9-2. But make that 9-3. He really didn't play that well (5-15) and he was hunting shots. But Sanders got outplayed by Miller. That can't happen. I thought he was or at least had a chance to be second-best big man in the league or third if you count Van Vliet. But he was a no-show on offense and on the boards. Again, always in foul trouble. Just silly fouls that takes him out of the game and he loses his aggressiveness when he's playing with three or four fouls. He had five points and four rebounds in 27 minutes. He needed to double that for us to have a chance.

Weird stat of the day? Betrand scored 18 points but was also a -18. Nobody was even close on the stat sheet. I don't know if it was his defense, because Timberlake was in over him late in the game. Timberlake isn't a better defender, but in the zone late in the game, he looked good. Maybe we should have gone zone a lot earlier, though. 

Some questionable moves. Taking Gibson out right after he nailed that three in the corner to cut it two. Imagine if we had more than 2,400 people, how loud the arena would have gotten? I know he used Dottin for defense, but I thought it was too early to play offense/defense and he lost Gibson for several possessions. Dottin came in and they hit a three against the zone. Then Dottin gets called for a foul, the third of the night against a Cougars three-point shooter. The other shaky move was (not sure it was a coaching move) Gray taking a quick three late in the half and then Riller hitting the last three (due to a Sanders foul) that we never had the last shot. That three gave the Cougars huge momentum in the second half.

Speaking of Gibson, he struggled at times against some of their guards defensively, but he has the "it" factor. Dude wants to shoot the ball late in games and those two threes were tremendous. He's going to be a good one.

This one hurts because it shows we're better, but we're not there yet. Bottom line is that get in the top six and that's doable, but this showed that they are our Kryptonite. You might be able to say that about NE and Hofstra as well. They have great players, but they don't have Riller.

That's what it takes. We have good players, but we don't have great ones. We've had just one great player in the Skerry era and JB. He had just one year in the tournament and we couldn't get it done. Maybe Betrand will be that guy next season.

On to the comments.

[TuTigers2012 1,061]

Didn’t get into a flow offensively in this one. A bad three point shooting team shot lights out. That along with the best scorer in the conference doing whatever he wanted hurt. 

Thought pat went to the bench to quickly in the first half (before the first media). Starters were playing good at that point. 

Refs didn’t help with awful Ticky tack calls on us all day and nothing on Charleston. Miller and Riller extend their arms and hook on lots of drives and post ups. Can’t foul 3 point shooters something we haven’t done recently. The last from dottin on Riller wasn’t close. But can’t put the refs in the position to call that. 

Jailbirds 3, with 4 left on the shot clock, after we cut it to 2 and they ran nothing for the entire possession was the back breaker. If that doesn’t bounce around all over and go in we would have won that game. 

[mat1992 2,233]

Skerry opening comment (he's the only one at the press conference)

Tough one today. Thought our guys played hard. Credit to Charleston, they're a terrific team. We just couldn't stop them. I don't think that's happened since Xavier. Couldn't stop Riller early. He's a great player. They really shot the ball well from the perimeter. Thought their seniors were terrific for them. Miller, McManus and obviously Riller. We played hard, but we made some untimely mental errors. We fouled a three-point shooter three times in the second half. We were a little bit wild on offense. When they were switching ball screens, we settled for some jump shots instead of attacking the paint. We didn't get into the bonus until late in the game. He was good early. Really good.
 

On offensive struggles in the second half

I thought we settled for too many jump shots. In this streak, only 33% of our shots have been threes. When we lost to them last time, we took 47% of our shots were threes. We're going to shoot threes. But I thought we settled too much. We didn't do a good job getting catches. Getting pushed out a little bit. A couple of careless plays. Got too reliant playing off the ball screen. We didn't much on post ups today. 

On bigs missing at the rim

That's going to hurt. They aren't trying to miss those. We're getting the ball on the rim and then they are making contested threes on the other end. Give that kid McManus credit, he was making around 12% of his threes in conference play.  Was 2 for 3 today. They stuck shots from deep. We kept Riller out of the lane, but they had guys step up and make shots.

On loss, looking ahead

We know we're going to play a very good team next Thursday. There's no easy nights in this league. We're going to play another good team Thursday after playing a good team. We can't get away from what got us going. Fouling some shooters. I didn't love our offense late. They get a lot of credit for that.

On Gibson

He's playing great. Played great early in the year. We fed him to the lions a bit with some of the people we played. He's been playing good. The only thing that is not great is you need older guys in these type of games to play at a high level. Freshmen and sophomores can be problematic when getting the win. Great crowd and atmosphere. We appreciate everybody coming out. We just didn't do enough to beat a good team.

[mat1992 2,233]

6 minutes ago, TuTigers2012 said:

Didn’t get into a flow offensively in this one. A bad three point shooting team shot lights out. That along with the best scorer in the conference doing whatever he wanted hurt. 

Thought pat went to the bench to quickly in the first half (before the first media). Starters were playing good at that point. 

Refs didn’t help with awful Ticky tack calls on us all day and nothing on Charleston. Miller and Riller extend their arms and hook on lots of drives and post ups. Can’t foul 3 point shooters something we haven’t done recently. The last from dottin on Riller wasn’t close. But can’t put the refs in the position to call that. 

Jailbirds 3, with 4 left on the shot clock, after we cut it to 2 and they ran nothing for the entire possession was the back breaker. If that doesn’t bounce around all over and go in we would have won that game. 

Agree for the most part. Pat always goes to the bench at around the 17:00-16:30 mark to start the game. Sometimes he brings in two, sometimes he brings in four. I don't think that hurt too much.  They literally made shots out of their ass in the second half. Our inability to guard Riller gives guys open looks all the time and to his credit, he finds them.  

[mat1992 2,233]

BTW, watching Riller and the CAA for over 30 years, he's one of the best players I've seen in this league. I'll just go back the 19 years since we joined the league and he's definitely top five. He's deceptively quick and athletic. Not sure he can play point guard in the NBA and still get his shot off, but I know he'll get a shot. He just makes everybody else better and that's a huge gift because some scorers don't.

[TSU88 1,070]

Too much Riller. When he drained the 3 at the end of the 1st half, I sensed we were going to be in trouble in the 2nd half. He scored half of their points in the 1st half.  Glad he’s played his last game at SECU. He’s been around so long, I swear he must be 30 years old. I think we can beat them, but there’s very little margin for error. I would not want to face Riller again, in the conference tournament. With all that being said about Riller, their supporting cast came up big in the 2nd half. If Miller doesn’t get that incredibly lucky bounce on his 3 with about 3 minutes left, we might have pulled it off.

Bottom line, their seniors (Riller, Miller & McManus) outplayed our seniors (Fobbs, Sanders, Tunstall). If Sanders continues to pick up stupid 2nd half fouls (which he’s done 2 games in a row) we’re going to struggle.

Props to Gibson. He’s stepped up his game as the conference season has gone on, which is exactly what you look for out of a freshman 

Big road trip next week-Delaware is right on our heels, then Drexel. I’d love a sweep, but gotta get at least one of them. 

[mat1992 2,233]

14 minutes ago, TSU88 said:

Too much Riller. When he drained the 3 at the end of the 1st half, I sensed we were going to be in trouble in the 2nd half. He scored half of their points in the 1st half.  Glad he’s played his last game at SECU. He’s been around so long, I swear he must be 30 years old. I think we can beat them, but there’s very little margin for error. I would not want to face Riller again, in the conference tournament. With all that being said about Riller, their supporting cast came up big in the 2nd half. If Miller doesn’t get that incredibly lucky bounce on his 3 with about 3 minutes left, we might have pulled it off.

Bottom line, their seniors (Riller, Miller & McManus) outplayed our seniors (Fobbs, Sanders, Tunstall). If Sanders continues to pick up stupid 2nd half fouls (which he’s done 2 games in a row) we’re going to struggle.

Props to Gibson. He’s stepped up his game as the conference season has gone on, which is exactly what you look for out of a freshman 

Big road trip next week-Delaware is right on our heels, then Drexel. I’d love a sweep, but gotta get at least one of them. 

I think 10 wins is the magic number. I'm fine with finishing in the top six and I picked us fifth, so as long as you avoid the first day, that's acceptable. Of course, with our luck, we'll get the 4-5 game and Charleston will get the fourth spot and we'll have the fifth. But with five out of seven on the road, we'll need to split next week, beat JMU on the road and Elon at home. Not saying that's great, but I don't think we're beating NE or Hofstra on the road.

[TSU88 1,070]

Doubtful we beat Hofstra on the road (is that our last regular season game? If so, even more doubtful we beat them on senior day). 

NE is nothing special this year, but I wouldn’t bet the ranch we beat them on the road either. 

Agree that most important thing is to finish in top 6, and thus avoid PIG

 

[Towsonfan2014 3]

I have to give props where it’s due. I hate Charleston with a passion, but Riller is the TRUTH. Wish we could recruit someone with his ability. He came in as a freshman and was already better than any guard on our roster the last 4 years. 

Edited February 2, 2020 by Towsonfan2014

[mat1992 2,233]

I wish they had the highlight of Timberlake's miss on that ally-oop try from out of bounds.