2022-2023 postmortem

[TSU88 1,070]

I guess I could have posted in the L to C of C thread, but I was so despondent after last night, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I had a sense of foreboding about last night’s game, which doesn’t make me clairvoyant, but rather just means I expect us, under Skerry, to come up short in the conference tournament.  I mean, what is there to say about last night that hasn’t already been said. The guys played hard, had the lead at the half, engineered a great comeback in the 2nd half, and then, wait for it…squandered a chance to win. Truthfully I’d rather get blown out than continually losing in this gut wrenching “Charlie Brown-Lucy-football” manner. 

It’s abundantly obvious, in my humble opinion, that Skerry is never going to get us to the dance, much less to even the finals of the CAAT. His dismal record in the tournament, over a period of 10+ years, speaks for itself, and need not be belabored by me in this post. As has been stated before, we’re in this sort of netherworld where he wins enough games in the regular season not to be fired, but is incapable of winning the CAAT and getting us to the promised land. I share Bay Area’s concern (I think it was him) that it is entirely possible we will not go dancing in my lifetime. That’s not hyperbole, just a recognition of the fact it’s now been over 30 years since we last drank from that fountain. 

Barring a miracle, I’m reconciled to the fact that we have, at a minimum, another 3 years of Skerry. I say at a minimum because I’m personally not sure how many years he has left on his contract, but he could be approaching lame duck status, similar to Ambrose, in the not too distant future. I can only hope that when the time comes that Eigenbrot can see through the surface regular season success, to the futility we have endured in the postseason, and that he decides a change is needed. 

As to the short term, who knows what next season holds in store? I was frankly quite shocked to read Mat’s post wherein he mentioned that Skerry made a statement about Timberlake still having a year of eligibility if he wants to come back and make a run at the school scoring record. I’m guessing he wouldn’t have raised this if he didn’t think there was at least some possibility of NT returning. Honestly, I’m somewhat conflicted on the idea (notwithstanding that I can’t imagine it’s going to happen). Part of me likes the idea of a clean slate, with no expectations, next season. But, OTOH, how can you look askance at a 17ppg player returning? If both NT and CT return, and Skerry hits a few home runs (unlikely in my opinion, but keep hope alive, I guess) in the portal, and May, Conway and Williamson improve, and 1 or more of the promising freshman contribute, well…it’s a helluva lot of ifs, but we might not be as bad as some expect. But, to what end? Maybe we exceed expectations and win 18-20 games in a wildly best case scenario. Then we all know what’ll happen in the CAAT. 

Anyway, at the risk of being branded a complete gloom and doom merchant, I did see recently that out incoming freshman from Illinois, Lowery, had a big game in the State playoffs, scoring 20 points and grabbing 10 boards, against a team with two Big 10 commits, so, while it’s a fool’s errand, I’ll try and keep some hope alive, no matter how faint that hope is. 
 

 

Edited March 7, 2023 by TSU88

[TuTigers2012 1,061]

23 minutes ago, TSU88 said:

I guess I could have posted in the L to C of C thread, but I was so despondent after last night, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I had a sense of foreboding about last night’s game, which doesn’t make me clairvoyant, but rather just means I expect us, under Skerry, to come up short in the conference tournament.  I mean, what is there to say about last night that hasn’t already been said. The guys played hard, had the lead at the half, engineered a great comeback in the 2nd half, and then, wait for it…squandered a chance to win. Truthfully I’d rather get blown out than continually losing in this gut wrenching “Charlie Brown-Lucy-football” manner. 

It’s abundantly obvious, in my humble opinion, that Skerry is never going to get us to the dance, much less to even the finals of the CAAT. His dismal record in the tournament, over a period of 10+ years, speaks for itself, and need not be belabored by me in this post. As has been stated before, we’re in this sort of netherworld where he wins enough games in the regular season not to be fired, but is incapable of winning the CAAT and getting us to the promised land. I share Bay Area’s concern (I think it was him) that it is entirely possible we will not go dancing in my lifetime. That’s not hyperbole, just a recognition of the fact it’s now been over 30 years since we last drank from that fountain. 

Barring a miracle, I’m reconciled to the fact that we have, at a minimum, another 3 years of Skerry. I say at a minimum because I’m personally not sure how many years he has left on his contract, but he could be approaching lame duck status, similar to Ambrose, in the not too distant future. I can only hope that when the time comes that Eigenbrot can see through the surface regular season success, to the futility we have endured in the postseason, and that he decides a change is needed. 

As to the short term, who knows what next season holds in store? I was frankly quite shocked to read Mat’s post wherein he mentioned that Skerry made a statement about Timberlake still having a year of eligibility if he wants to come back and make a run at the school scoring record. I’m guessing he wouldn’t have raised this if he didn’t think there was at least some possibility of NT returning. Honestly, I’m somewhat conflicted on the idea (notwithstanding that I can’t imagine it’s going to happen). Part of me likes the idea of a clean slate, with no expectations, next season. But, OTOH, how can you look askance at a 17ppg player returning? If both NT and CT return, and Skerry hits a few home runs (unlikely in my opinion, but keep hope alive, I guess) in the portal, and May, Conway and Williamson improve, and 1 or more of the promising freshman contribute, well…it’s a helluva lot of ifs, but we might not be as bad as some expect. But, to what end? Maybe we exceed expectations and win 18-20 games in a wildly best case scenario. Then we all know what’ll happen in the CAAT. 

Anyway, at the risk of being branded a complete gloom and doom merchant, I did see recently that out incoming freshman from Illinois, Lowery, had a big game in the State playoffs, scoring 20 points and grabbing 10 boards, against a team with two Big 10 commits, so, while it’s a fool’s errand, I’ll try and keep some hope alive, no matter how faint that hope is. 
 

 

Couldn’t have said it better.  Stuck in no man’s land 

[mat1992 2,231]

I don't think becoming the all-time scoring leader is enough to bring Nick back for a sixth year. Go out in the world and try to make money in basketball or something else. It's wishful thinking unless they get a pretty big NIL deal, which ain't happening here. And how'd that work for North Carolina? They brought just about everyone back, most of their returning guys were making big NIL bucks and they might miss the tournament.  

[TuTigers2012 1,061]

Also I assume we are all rooting for Charleston tonight right?

[mat1992 2,231]

11 minutes ago, TuTigers2012 said:

Also I assume we are all rooting for Charleston tonight right?

Don’t care who wins. Probably will take the points so rooting for a close game.

[Tiger93 299]

35 minutes ago, TSU88 said:

I guess I could have posted in the L to C of C thread, but I was so despondent after last night, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I had a sense of foreboding about last night’s game, which doesn’t make me clairvoyant, but rather just means I expect us, under Skerry, to come up short in the conference tournament.  I mean, what is there to say about last night that hasn’t already been said. The guys played hard, had the lead at the half, engineered a great comeback in the 2nd half, and then, wait for it…squandered a chance to win. Truthfully I’d rather get blown out than continually losing in this gut wrenching “Charlie Brown-Lucy-football” manner. 

It’s abundantly obvious, in my humble opinion, that Skerry is never going to get us to the dance, much less to even the finals of the CAAT. His dismal record in the tournament, over a period of 10+ years, speaks for itself, and need not be belabored by me in this post. As has been stated before, we’re in this sort of netherworld where he wins enough games in the regular season not to be fired, but is incapable of winning the CAAT and getting us to the promised land. I share Bay Area’s concern (I think it was him) that it is entirely possible we will not go dancing in my lifetime. That’s not hyperbole, just a recognition of the fact it’s now been over 30 years since we last drank from that fountain. 

Barring a miracle, I’m reconciled to the fact that we have, at a minimum, another 3 years of Skerry. I say at a minimum because I’m personally not sure how many years he has left on his contract, but he could be approaching lame duck status, similar to Ambrose, in the not too distant future. I can only hope that when the time comes that Eigenbrot can see through the surface regular season success, to the futility we have endured in the postseason, and that he decides a change is needed. 

As to the short term, who knows what next season holds in store? I was frankly quite shocked to read Mat’s post wherein he mentioned that Skerry made a statement about Timberlake still having a year of eligibility if he wants to come back and make a run at the school scoring record. I’m guessing he wouldn’t have raised this if he didn’t think there was at least some possibility of NT returning. Honestly, I’m somewhat conflicted on the idea (notwithstanding that I can’t imagine it’s going to happen). Part of me likes the idea of a clean slate, with no expectations, next season. But, OTOH, how can you look askance at a 17ppg player returning? If both NT and CT return, and Skerry hits a few home runs (unlikely in my opinion, but keep hope alive, I guess) in the portal, and May, Conway and Williamson improve, and 1 or more of the promising freshman contribute, well…it’s a helluva lot of ifs, but we might not be as bad as some expect. But, to what end? Maybe we exceed expectations and win 18-20 games in a wildly best case scenario. Then we all know what’ll happen in the CAAT. 

Anyway, at the risk of being branded a complete gloom and doom merchant, I did see recently that out incoming freshman from Illinois, Lowery, had a big game in the State playoffs, scoring 20 points and grabbing 10 boards, against a team with two Big 10 commits, so, while it’s a fool’s errand, I’ll try and keep some hope alive, no matter how faint that hope is. 
 

 

Pretty on-point post. I can't disagree about the assessment of Skerry's team's (I say his teams because the buck doesn't just stop with him) performances in postseason play. I put yesterday's loss at least in the top five of most disappointing since I have started following the program. We were right there, but shot ourselves in the foot when we had the chance to grab the game by the throat on several occasions. That was not only a conference tournament game, but one that came against an opponent with a lot of national buzz that we could have used to help us if we had won. It reminded me a lot of our loss to Drexel in 1995, but this game was closer.  

Oddly enough last year's regular season was awesome but the conference tournament was very underwhelming. This year, the regular-season was underwhelming, but the effort and fight was good in the conference tournament (not good enough). This was probably Skerry's best run in a conference tournament (other than maybe 2017), but obviously not good enough. Ultimately the results are not good enough, because we can come up with 5-6 games against Power 5 teams (Pittsburgh twice (even though they sucked), Maryland, Clemson, Ohio State, I am sure there are a couple of others) where we were almost there and 3-4 conference tournament appearances and coming up short is clearly a consistent pattern. 

I will say when it comes to Skerry as the head coach at Towson the only way we guarantee doing any better would be to raise our expectations and go after a proven commodity like a Kelsey-type coach. This would require having the money to do it, finding the right candidate, a buyout, and the president and AD to be on the same page about the decision. It seems unlikely that would all come together when he still has three years left on his contract. I guess based on the Laura Harper hire this year that I somewhat trust Steve Eigonbrot's hiring process to this point if we did not go big, but tried to find someone else. I get the hunger for something new, but I don't think Skerry deserves to be fired.  

In defense of Skerry I will say a couple of things. I think he did do a good job of having his team ready for this tournament. The players were in position to make winning plays and they just came up short. In the past, I thought his teams were too tight or he was outcoached in big spots. I don't think it would be fair to say any of that this year in the conference tournament. However, we did have the luxury of playing with a chip on our shoulder as the underdog and he has been better in that role than he has been as the hunted (like in 2014, 2022). I was disappointed in the regular-season, but still 21 wins is not terrible it is just underperforming what we all expected which is disappointing at the end of the day. 

This is a big offseason. I remember in 2021 everyone was ready to say the quality was dipping and Skerry wasn't a good coach. He answered that in a big way with the transfer portal haul of Holden, Nolan Jr. and Rizzuto which led us to the most successful D-1 regular-season in school history, a 46-21 overall record the last two years and 27-9 conference record. I think he is facing the same question again and will need a similar haul to keep this going in what I believe is going to become an increasingly competitive CAA.

This program can not afford to give up ground and not be a top 3-4 team in this league on an annual basis. I do believe Skerry has made some positive changes to be a better coach the last couple of years, even midway through this year. He was stubborn on switching his defenses, but finally did so at times this year including last night with a switch to a 1-2-2 zone that got a late stop against Charleston. He is still growing as a coach, and the ultimate question is do we think he can get to a tournament. I know a lot of people on here have an answer of no, and while I am not sure I think the last two years have been progress. However, I think the lack of results in the tournament make it so we have to continue to judge him at the standard of where the program is holistically. That means even with all of the players who may be graduating, I still expect him to go in the portal and find what we need to be a good team next year. We can't expect anything less. 

As for the players, I want to echo the fact that that I thought Cam was great yesterday. He forced Kelsey to almost exclusively play Scott on him for the second part of the game, which should have opened things up for Timberlake but we just couldn't get what we needed offensively when Charleston made their push on us. I also agree that up 70-69 with 1:48 to go I hate that the best we could with our season on the line was a Rahdir Hicks three. However, we were out of timeouts and Charleston just stuffed all of our options. We need to be better in those big spots and that has been a weakness all year.

I love Charles, Jason and Nick. This is my favorite class since Blalock, Thomas, Alexander, etc., but we need to turn the page and upgrade our talent to get to a higher level. We have to evolve before this program gets sucked back into mediocrity, and there are ways to do that with Skerry in my opinion. 

[Blounge 520]

Do you think this group will play again in NIT or CBI tournaments?

[TuTigers2012 1,061]

23 minutes ago, Tiger93 said:

Pretty on-point post. I can't disagree about the assessment of Skerry's team's (I say his teams because the buck doesn't just stop with him) performances in postseason play. I put yesterday's loss at least in the top five of most disappointing since I have started following the program. We were right there, but shot ourselves in the foot when we had the chance to grab the game by the throat on several occasions. That was not only a conference tournament game, but one that came against an opponent with a lot of national buzz that we could have used to help us if we had won. It reminded me a lot of our loss to Drexel in 1995, but this game was closer.  

Oddly enough last year's regular season was awesome but the conference tournament was very underwhelming. This year, the regular-season was underwhelming, but the effort and fight was good in the conference tournament (not good enough). This was probably Skerry's best run in a conference tournament (other than maybe 2017), but obviously not good enough. Ultimately the results are not good enough, because we can come up with 5-6 games against Power 5 teams (Pittsburgh twice (even though they sucked), Maryland, Clemson, Ohio State, I am sure there are a couple of others) where we were almost there and 3-4 conference tournament appearances and coming up short is clearly a consistent pattern. 

I will say when it comes to Skerry as the head coach at Towson the only way we guarantee doing any better would be to raise our expectations and go after a proven commodity like a Kelsey-type coach. This would require having the money to do it, finding the right candidate, a buyout, and the president and AD to be on the same page about the decision. It seems unlikely that would all come together when he still has three years left on his contract. I guess based on the Laura Harper hire this year that I somewhat trust Steve Eigonbrot's hiring process to this point if we did not go big, but tried to find someone else. I get the hunger for something new, but I don't think Skerry deserves to be fired.  

In defense of Skerry I will say a couple of things. I think he did do a good job of having his team ready for this tournament. The players were in position to make winning plays and they just came up short. In the past, I thought his teams were too tight or he was outcoached in big spots. I don't think it would be fair to say any of that this year in the conference tournament. However, we did have the luxury of playing with a chip on our shoulder as the underdog and he has been better in that role than he has been as the hunted (like in 2014, 2022). I was disappointed in the regular-season, but still 21 wins is not terrible it is just underperforming what we all expected which is disappointing at the end of the day. 

This is a big offseason. I remember in 2021 everyone was ready to say the quality was dipping and Skerry wasn't a good coach. He answered that in a big way with the transfer portal haul of Holden, Nolan Jr. and Rizzuto which led us to the most successful D-1 regular-season in school history, a 46-21 overall record the last two years and 27-9 conference record. I think he is facing the same question again and will need a similar haul to keep this going in what I believe is going to become an increasingly competitive CAA.

This program can not afford to give up ground and not be a top 3-4 team in this league on an annual basis. I do believe Skerry has made some positive changes to be a better coach the last couple of years, even midway through this year. He was stubborn on switching his defenses, but finally did so at times this year including last night with a switch to a 1-2-2 zone that got a late stop against Charleston. He is still growing as a coach, and the ultimate question is do we think he can get to a tournament. I know a lot of people on here have an answer of no, and while I am not sure I think the last two years have been progress. However, I think the lack of results in the tournament make it so we have to continue to judge him at the standard of where the program is holistically. That means even with all of the players who may be graduating, I still expect him to go in the portal and find what we need to be a good team next year. We can't expect anything less. 

As for the players, I want to echo the fact that that I thought Cam was great yesterday. He forced Kelsey to almost exclusively play Scott on him for the second part of the game, which should have opened things up for Timberlake but we just couldn't get what we needed offensively when Charleston made their push on us. I also agree that up 70-69 with 1:48 to go I hate that the best we could with our season on the line was a Rahdir Hicks three. However, we were out of timeouts and Charleston just stuffed all of our options. We need to be better in those big spots and that has been a weakness all year.

I love Charles, Jason and Nick. This is my favorite class since Blalock, Thomas, Alexander, etc., but we need to turn the page and upgrade our talent to get to a higher level. We have to evolve before this program gets sucked back into mediocrity, and there are ways to do that with Skerry in my opinion. 

Oh jeez.  He may not deserve to be fired (hmm) but he doesn’t deserve to still be coaching here l.

11 minutes ago, Blounge said:

Do you think this group will play again in NIT or CBI tournaments?

Lol. No. NIT?! What do you smoke?  our NET and RPI is well into the 130s+.  
Program philosophy to not pay for tournaments. 

[mat1992 2,231]

18 minutes ago, Blounge said:

Do you think this group will play again in NIT or CBI tournaments?

CBI probably wants us, but not sure we want to play in Daytona or anywhere after last night.

[Tiger93 299]

7 minutes ago, TuTigers2012 said:

Oh jeez.  He may not deserve to be fired (hmm) but he doesn’t deserve to still be coaching here l.

Fair enough, I suppose this is where we say we are stuck in the middle. Much better than being stuck at the bottom, but still probably just as frustrating from a pure results standpoint. I am extremely disappointed in the way the last two years have ended, but I have trouble looking to fire someone after going 46-21 and 27-9 in conference play in two seasons. That is not mediocrity, but I do feel the pressure should be on not to slip back to the mediocrity that has preceded these years. Much like I was disappointed that Rob Ambrose did not build on the run to the championship game, I would be disappointed if we don't build off the last two years with a good, high level transfers this offseason. I think Skerry should be judged on what is next, but I do understand that NCAA Tournament or bust is important mentality for us to have.