Tejada, Tarke lead MBB to overtime win over Stony Brook 73-64

[mat1992 2,235]

Just now, Bay Area Tiger said:

Have to add..  Messiah Jones had 6 points and 6 rebounds.  No turnovers. 
Sula 2 fouls early so we saw Jones more.

Good outing for his confidence!

Yeah, was pretty good in the first half and finished well twice. He played 19 minutes and was efficient. Sulaiman missed a two footer where you dunk it or put it off the glass. Seems like he's better going with the left hand for some reason. 

[mat1992 2,235]

I think despite the second half being a near-disaster, there were a couple of subtle changes tonight.

1)Playing Tarke at the point late in the game. Some success with that and you have a much bigger lineup with him at the 1, May at the 2 and Tejada or Lowery at the 3. Lowery is struggling offensively with his shot so it's tough to play more than he did tonight (10 minutes). If Tarke can play 5-7mpg at the point, Lowery will end up playing around 10mpg. Not a great thing because they need his D and length. I think Tarke is getting more and more comfortable with this team. I would like to see him take the ball in the backcourt when Williamson is out or if Lowery is struggling or certainly if CT is back there.

2)Tejada at power forward. Mixed success but they can spread the floor more especially when we see zones. Tejada went 3 for 5 from 3-point range tonight. After a bit of a slump, he's showing a lot of confidence in that shot because opponents have taken away his drive for the most part. He should be able to get more to the basket if he sees bigger opponents trying to defend him.

[Tiger93 299]

Agree with most everything that was said on here. Terrible turnover by Charles Thompson late in the 2nd half. Not sure if I put that more on him or the general set up of the play. Other than the turnover though, it was another solid game with 12 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals and 2 blocks. Towson was +18 in 38 minutes with him on the floor and a -9 in seven minutes on the floor with Paar. That is not meant to disparage Paar as much as it is meant as praise for Thompson who did an excellent job guarding a 7-footer and a 6-10 player with a great deal of athleticism. He let himself get backed down a couple of times for easy buckets, but for the most part he made things tough for Stony Brook's post players, and did a solid job rebounding. 

It wasn't a great game for Dylan Williamson, but he did do a good job providing the offensive spark in the first half with 12 points and 3 three-pointers. We have had trouble finishing out games, and it came back at us again, but credit to Tarke for stepping up and going 6-6 at the free-throw line, while the rest of the team was 7-15. We did do one of the big things Skerry teams like to do, and that is go to the line more than the other team. We went to the line and nine more times (21-12) and made seven more free throws (13-6), although part of that was bad free-throw shooting by Stony Brook. 

As several people mentioned, Messiah Jones was very efficient going 3-4 with 6 points, 6 rebounds and was a +11 in just 20 minutes. It has also been good seeing Tejada's offensive game come back to life, and to see him hit some big shots and put up 16 points in 25 minutes. I just hope he can clean up his court positioning, because I believe he stepped out three times. We need the offense he brings, and it was good to see him log his highest minute total since the Bryant game. 

Also, I agree that May did a lot of things you don't see in the boxscore today with his hustle and defensive effort. I know the +/- totals can get dumb, but I do believe the fact that Thompson was +18 in 38 minutes and May was +14 in 40 minutes are pretty accurate reflections of the imprint the efforts put on this game. 

That Stony Brook team was a funky team that just made some weird shots. Noll was 7-12 from the field and it felt like 5-6 of those were old school running hook shots, which was frustrating (but fun was long as we won) to watch. 

That is a team that averages 68 possessions on the season, and once again we dragged a team into our pace as they had 64 possessions in 45 minutes of basketball. They also averaged 1.000 points per possession. We had 65 possessions and averaged 1.123 points per possession. I can't find the stats for UMBC or South Dakota State, but when we have 1.1 points per possession or better, we are 6-0. I am guessing we probably were over that against UMBC so that would actually be 7-0 (there is no way we were above that in South Dakota. 

On to Northeastern, which as many have mentioned will be a challenging trip as usual. 

Edited January 12 by Tiger93

[TuTigers2012 1,071]

9 hours ago, mat1992 said:

Let's go with good, bad and ugly. Let me start with ugly.

Ugly: 30-minute delay for a shot clock issue. That is unacceptable. First delay of the year is when Cole Paar broke the basket in warm ups. That took about 1/2 that long to change baskets and start the game about 15 minutes late. If there are equipment issues it's on the athletic department along with facilities to get this fixed. Shit happens sometimes, but you have to be prepared for it. And I didn't even mention the roof leaking in the women's game against UMES that has been re-scheduled. That money received from the next bank that sponsors TU Arena should go towards some renovations and fixes over the summer. New shot clocks, baskets, roofing, etc. PS did apologize in the press conference for that 30-minute delay, but I'm guessing that even his harshest critics can't' blame him for the issues with the building. 

Bad: The last 45 seconds of regulation. Why is Charles Thompson handing the ball against pressure late in the game? Where is Williamson? I knew he was guarded tightly by Clarke. Almost too tightly. 

The last play at the end of regulation. .Everything was right until the shot. Williamson had 6-10 Chris Maidoh on him and you either drive past him or drive to set up somebody. Ends up taking a tough fadeaway that missed.

May's offense. He played 41 minutes and you'd like to see him score more than 8 points. He didn't even get to the line, which can be a bad thing, but also had four turnovers. Dropped one great pass down low. 

Good:

May's defense on Tyler Stephenson-Moore was exceptional. He held him to just nine points on 3-of-12 shooting (1-4 3pt). Stephenon-Moore is one of the best pure scorers in the conference.

Big-shot Tyler Tejada did it again. Hits the big three in overtime and Stony Brook never recovered. Had 16 points on 5-of-10 shooting. Just one rebound but I like that they are playing him more at the 4. With Sulaiman and Jones struggling, he's going to need to play probably at least 10 minutes there.

Charles Thompson is playing better. He's not back. That jump hook is still not pure yet, but he had 12 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 blocks. That's all you can expect every night. Now he faces old foe Chris Dougherty for the 50th time on Saturday.

Some zone struggles that I'm sure Towson will see plenty of in the CAA. Towson shot 52% from the field in the first half, but around 35% in the second half. Some missed bunnies but mostly missed jumpers. 

Nendah Tarke's defense and FT shooting. Tarke didn't shoot well tonight (3-7 FG, 1-4 3pt), but he had 13 points, 5 rebounds and 3 assists. He ran the point a lot because of defense and Williamson's second half struggles. But his FT shooting was huge in the overtime. CT and May were in the press room and they both mentioned how much they've been practicing FTs. You can see Tarke has and it's paying off. Would like to see him drive a little more but it still seems like he's in the feeling-out process on offense.

Hell may freeze over because I agree word for word. 
 

may Williamson tarke and Tejada need to be if a team is going to zone us. Need drivers and some shooters.  It confused us in the first half. 
We did a very good job defensively on their best player. Let the role players try and get theirs and lock up the best guy. Can’t have players like white and rice go for 20+ and win often. That white guy with the leg brace  was killing us early on, but like most role players (as we all know) has limitations. 
 

4 spot is still very concerning. Jones played better than Suliman last night but that isn’t saying anything.  Getting 10 and 9 combined from them is probably the ceiling. 
 

facilities needs to fix their shit. Embarrassing that in less than 2 years we have had 2 hoop issues (last nights took way to long to rectify) a wet court and a leaky roof. Arena is a decade old. This isn’t the motor burning out on seats at the Towson Center. Luckily it was against stony Brook and their coach was a good sport about it

[TuTigers2012 1,071]

9 hours ago, TSU88 said:

Yeah, I neglected to mention in my previous post about the ridiculous 30-minute delay. Not acceptable & makes us look like a Mickey Mouse outfit. 

Also agree that CT has no business handling the ball like he did tonight at the end of the game. And May disappointed again on offense, though he gets credit for his D tonight. 

Last thing is an observation I made tonight. Early in the first half DWill did (or failed to do) something that pissed Skerry off. Then on the defensive end, Tarke picked up a foul. Skerry immediately yanked both from the game. Just seems to me that he’s putting unnecessary pressure on some of these guys to basically play perfect or be benched. I wonder if that doesn’t tend to make guys tentative, for fear of making a mistake and being benched 

 

That’s been his way. Quick hooks. I agree with you there’s a time and place for those. Basketball is a rhythm sport and that makes it difficult to do

[El Tigre Oro 86]

This team is really rounding into Peak Skerry Mediocrity. 

[Blounge 521]

https://x.com/mid_madness/status/1745636208795939130?s=46&t=_ArGClX3XZ7EdROrGIJtmw
 

Mid Major Madness calls out towson fans! 

[Blounge 521]

13 hours ago, mat1992 said:

 

Skerry with some gems as always

”we are known to recruit some good guys over the years”

”i know those pizzas cost me a couple hundred bucks but I would do it anytime for those guys” (thanking the lacrosse team for coming to the game because he bribed them with pizza) 

not a bad strategy. Skerry should buy ledo pizzas and bribe a team or a frat to come out to a game/pizza party