Charleston overwhelms MBB on Senior Day 72-56

[mat1992 2,237]

https://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=487965

Towson falls at home in front of a record crowd of 4,322. The Tigers were brutal defensively in the first half and overall, falling down 10-2 and then compounded that by getting down 20 to start the second half. The Cougars shot a remarkable 15 of 22 from three-point range. Charleston improved to 13-3 and 22-7 on the season, while Towson fell to 10-6 in the CAA and 17-12 overall.

[Chris Datres 424]

Today was the largest glaring example of what works in college basketball and what doesn't.  You can hang your shingle on defense and rebounding but you'd better have offensive weapons in order to do that.  The years we won the conference regular season and advanced in the CIT, we had guys that could score.  You have to go out and find more of those scorers and not just a bunch of brutes that look good in a weight room and can play defense and rebound.  Kelsey took the job at Charleston and set about finding the type of players that work -- they're big, they share the ball, they hit open shots.  Meanwhile, we plod along and run a low-post offense with zero movement and sometimes a wing and a prayer to get a decent look or a look before the shot clock expires.  Twice today, the shot clock was running out and who had the ball?  Mekhi Lowery.  That can't ever happen.  We were largely clueless on offense, finding zero ways to get Tejada open (1 shot in the first half) and showing very little interest in running anything that had ball movement to 3 sides of the floor.  Meanwhile, Charleston is slinging it all over the floor and playing an orchestra on our defense (especially Thompson and Paar) with the pick-and-roll action.  Charleston's the template of what we should aspire to be.  They have D2 players just like we do but they found the offense while we went for the bruising fullbacks.  With whatever time Pat has left on his contract, he needs to overhaul his philosophy to be more like Charleston.  Otherwise, we've already hit our ceiling and it's never gonna get crashed through.

[Bay Area Tiger 347]

10 minutes ago, Chris Datres said:

Today was the largest glaring example of what works in college basketball and what doesn't.  You can hang your shingle on defense and rebounding but you'd better have offensive weapons in order to do that.  The years we won the conference regular season and advanced in the CIT, we had guys that could score.  You have to go out and find more of those scorers and not just a bunch of brutes that look good in a weight room and can play defense and rebound.  Kelsey took the job at Charleston and set about finding the type of players that work -- they're big, they share the ball, they hit open shots.  Meanwhile, we plod along and run a low-post offense with zero movement and sometimes a wing and a prayer to get a decent look or a look before the shot clock expires.  Twice today, the shot clock was running out and who had the ball?  Mekhi Lowery.  That can't ever happen.  We were largely clueless on offense, finding zero ways to get Tejada open (1 shot in the first half) and showing very little interest in running anything that had ball movement to 3 sides of the floor.  Meanwhile, Charleston is slinging it all over the floor and playing an orchestra on our defense (especially Thompson and Paar) with the pick-and-roll action.  Charleston's the template of what we should aspire to be.  They have D2 players just like we do but they found the offense while we went for the bruising fullbacks.  With whatever time Pat has left on his contract, he needs to overhaul his philosophy to be more like Charleston.  Otherwise, we've already hit our ceiling and it's never gonna get crashed through.

Spot on!

[TSU88 1,074]

14 minutes ago, Chris Datres said:

Today was the largest glaring example of what works in college basketball and what doesn't.  You can hang your shingle on defense and rebounding but you'd better have offensive weapons in order to do that.  The years we won the conference regular season and advanced in the CIT, we had guys that could score.  You have to go out and find more of those scorers and not just a bunch of brutes that look good in a weight room and can play defense and rebound.  Kelsey took the job at Charleston and set about finding the type of players that work -- they're big, they share the ball, they hit open shots.  Meanwhile, we plod along and run a low-post offense with zero movement and sometimes a wing and a prayer to get a decent look or a look before the shot clock expires.  Twice today, the shot clock was running out and who had the ball?  Mekhi Lowery.  That can't ever happen.  We were largely clueless on offense, finding zero ways to get Tejada open (1 shot in the first half) and showing very little interest in running anything that had ball movement to 3 sides of the floor.  Meanwhile, Charleston is slinging it all over the floor and playing an orchestra on our defense (especially Thompson and Paar) with the pick-and-roll action.  Charleston's the template of what we should aspire to be.  They have D2 players just like we do but they found the offense while we went for the bruising fullbacks.  With whatever time Pat has left on his contract, he needs to overhaul his philosophy to be more like Charleston.  Otherwise, we've already hit our ceiling and it's never gonna get crashed through.

Not much that can be added. We were thoroughly outclassed on both sides of the floor. I’ve been preaching that we need scorers, and today was Exhibit A in that argument. Either our coach is unwilling, or unable, to adapt his strategy.  You can only go so far with the “play hard D and crash the boards” strategy. (Frankly, I’m not sure how good the D has even been this year, but when you play as painfully slow as we do, the opponent’s ppg naturally will be low, simply because they don’t get that many possessions).  This antiquated system is good enough to beat up on the Campbell’s and Stony Brook’s of the world, but that’s about it. 

We’ve got Williamson and Tarke going forward, as far as guys who’ve shown flashes on the offensive end. I’m not sure you can really count May, although in fairness I will say it took until Timberlake’s 3rd year until he avg’d in double digits. I’m of the mind that Skerry almost has to blow most of the roster up and bring in new players, except I have almost no confidence the new guys will be any different than the guys who depart-a bunch of guys who look imposing walking through the airport, but can’t throw a beach ball in the ocean. 

4th place is slipping away, if it already hasn’t done so. Best case scenario on the upcoming road trip is a split, though I wouldn’t be surprised if we went 0-2. I’m resigned to a relatively quick exit from the tournament and then the Groundhog Day exercise of hoping we’ll finally have enough skilled offensive players to get to the promised land. I keep waiting, and waiting and waiting. 

 

[tualum 108]

Pretty bad on national tv at that. No words from the alum. Albeit, who pissed Mat off to make that thread? 😆 

Edited February 24 by tualum

[mat1992 2,237]

https://towsontigers.com/news/2024/2/24/mens-basketball-mens-basketball-falls-72-56-to-charleston-on-saturday.aspx

First of all, I'll be the first to congratulate Charleston on the win and expected CAA title. They played the game the way it was meant to be played. Quick passing. The ball never stuck to somebody like glue. Their defense was fantastic in the first half, where we couldn't even get a clean shot off. To an extent, their 15-of-22 three-point shooting is not normally who they are (around 33% on the season), but when you start the game 10-2 and are getting layups, the confidence level goes up. You realize that one team is ready to play and the other one is not. They were focused on revenge and getting first place. Looks like that will be accomplished with ease.

*I've been repeating myself over and over about length and athleticism. No offense to CP, but when he's going against James Scott, a 6-11 phenom, he doesn't have the foot quickness to overhelp on D and then get back and find Scott, who is mainly a dunker and shotblocker right now. Scary to see what Scott will be when he adds weight.

*Skerry seemed resigned to the fact that we might end up in 5th or 6. Basically, we said we have the depth to overcome that, but our players are so freakin' inconsistent from game-to-game, we don't have the talent to overcome if a May or Tejada have off games and they did today. Tejada got just one shot up in the first half. He's a scorer though they took away all his drives and they are a bit predictable with his right.

*Good job by the athletic dept. getting over 4,000 and breaking the record. Not much more to say about it. Seemed like they handled the crowds better but I got their very early. They were wanding people outside so that's a start.

*The power forward/4 spot was horrible today. Can't finish in traffic, undersized and not athletic enough. Can't make perimeter shots. It was ugly and we can talk about this experience on another threat, going to those 6-5, 235+ pound old school power forwards, who can't guard the perimeter. I wish we had Frankie Policelli (6-9, 225), but guessing that is an NIL issue. Our post spots are not athletic enough and when we hedge, especially Paar, teams like Charleston that are good passing team, exploit our lack of quickness in the post. That's one of the many things that needs to be rectified next season.

*Can we split next week? Sure. Can we win both games? Even if we do, it's hard to imagine that this team is good enough to win 3 or 4 games, if they wind up 5th or 6th.

*Pete Shinnick said his team had little margin for error and we know why. Lack of talent esp. at QB position. Towson has little margin for error and you can also say we don't have a QB. We don't have somebody who can run the team although I thought it was a huge mistake to start Tarke and not Williamson in the second half. I know we probably lost by 12 instead of 16, but when it was 20 early on, it was over.

[TSU88 1,074]

3 minutes ago, mat1992 said:

https://towsontigers.com/news/2024/2/24/mens-basketball-mens-basketball-falls-72-56-to-charleston-on-saturday.aspx

First of all, I'll be the first to congratulate Charleston on the win and expected CAA title. They played the game the way it was meant to be played. Quick passing. The ball never stuck to somebody like glue. Their defense was fantastic in the first half, where we couldn't even get a clean shot off. To an extent, their 15-of-22 three-point shooting is not normally who they are (around 33% on the season), but when you start the game 10-2 and are getting layups, the confidence level goes up. You realize that one team is ready to play and the other one is not. They were focused on revenge and getting first place. Looks like that will be accomplished with ease.

*I've been repeating myself over and over about length and athleticism. No offense to CP, but when he's going against James Scott, a 6-11 phenom, he doesn't have the foot quickness to overhelp on D and then get back and find Scott, who is mainly a dunker and shotblocker right now. Scary to see what Scott will be when he adds weight.

*Skerry seemed resigned to the fact that we might end up in 5th or 6. Basically, we said we have the depth to overcome that, but our players are so freakin' inconsistent from game-to-game, we don't have the talent to overcome if a May or Tejada have off games and they did today. Tejada got just one shot up in the first half. He's a scorer though they took away all his drives and they are a bit predictable with his right.

*

https://youtu.be/PE9LjhSmaYs

With Rogers and Scott, C of C’s future looks bright. And given their deep NIL pockets, they’ll add more quality players. We really didn’t belong on the same court with them today. Best thing that could happen for us would be if they left the CAA, though I have no clue if that’s in the offing. 

As was mentioned above, we seemingly had no strategy on offense, but to run the shot clock down and chuck up a desperation shot. Or, if we actually had a different strategy, our players just weren’t good enough to execute it. It’s inconceivable how a guy who dropped 30 just the other night, takes only one shot in the first half today. I can only speak for myself, but it’s depressing to see the talent on some of the other teams in our conference, and then have to watch guys like Paar, Jones, Sulaiman and sadly, Tarke & May. 
 

[mat1992 2,237]

1 hour ago, Chris Datres said:

Today was the largest glaring example of what works in college basketball and what doesn't.  You can hang your shingle on defense and rebounding but you'd better have offensive weapons in order to do that.  The years we won the conference regular season and advanced in the CIT, we had guys that could score.  You have to go out and find more of those scorers and not just a bunch of brutes that look good in a weight room and can play defense and rebound.  Kelsey took the job at Charleston and set about finding the type of players that work -- they're big, they share the ball, they hit open shots.  Meanwhile, we plod along and run a low-post offense with zero movement and sometimes a wing and a prayer to get a decent look or a look before the shot clock expires.  Twice today, the shot clock was running out and who had the ball?  Mekhi Lowery.  That can't ever happen.  We were largely clueless on offense, finding zero ways to get Tejada open (1 shot in the first half) and showing very little interest in running anything that had ball movement to 3 sides of the floor.  Meanwhile, Charleston is slinging it all over the floor and playing an orchestra on our defense (especially Thompson and Paar) with the pick-and-roll action.  Charleston's the template of what we should aspire to be.  They have D2 players just like we do but they found the offense while we went for the bruising fullbacks.  With whatever time Pat has left on his contract, he needs to overhaul his philosophy to be more like Charleston.  Otherwise, we've already hit our ceiling and it's never gonna get crashed through.

Hard to say it better than that. We can beat Elon and Monmouth that way but to beat Charleston, Hofstra, Drexel on the road, and when Delaware shows up, we need to do more than just win a rock fight. We obviously need more talent, and part of that is a $$ issue. We're not getting Policelli and Tyler Thomas. We also have to be creative in terms of finding shooters from overseas or juco or D2, where you have to pay nothing or minimal NIL. 

[mat1992 2,237]

5 minutes ago, TSU88 said:

With Rogers and Scott, C of C’s future looks bright. And given their deep NIL pockets, they’ll add more quality players. We really didn’t belong on the same court with them today. Best thing that could happen for us would be if they left the CAA, though I have no clue if that’s in the offing. 

As was mentioned above, we seemingly had no strategy on offense, but to run the shot clock down and chuck up a desperation shot. Or, if we actually had a different strategy, our players just weren’t good enough to execute it. It’s inconceivable how a guy who dropped 30 just the other night, takes only one shot in the first half today. I can only speak for myself, but it’s depressing to see the talent on some of the other teams in our conference, and then have to watch guys like Paar, Jones, Sulaiman and sadly, Tarke & May. 
 

Scott is going to be special when he adds muscle. Rodgers I think has one year left. Had two years of juco and that was post-Covid season.

I want to run as much as possible and not finish 359 in pace of play again. But I get the fact that our post players are slow. They can't run with Charleston. Every time we had a layup or fastbreak, unless we smoked the layup, they blocked it. And it wasn't just Scott. 

Ndefu and Embeya will help a lot, but we need to get some guards to help them out. We can talk more about that in the general thread, because it's that time of the year again.

[TuTigers2012 1,071]

Didn’t expect a win but that was pure ugly.  Charleston had a game plan and executed. Credit to them but it’s much easier when you have an actual coach, who can coaches and make adjustments.  (Made a ton from the first game). They made our average defense work and proved them to be a soft and overrated (as we all knew, well some)

 

On to next season!