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The best parallel example to Skerry is Tod Kowalczyk at Toledo. I outlined this a couple weeks ago -- He's been there as long as Skerry has been here and Toledo has been the 1 seed in each of the last 4 MAC Tournaments. They've lost every time. Their tournament drought is longer than ours. And I read today that Kowalczyk is being talked about for the job at Utah State.

I’m with 2012 & 88 now. Part of the New World Order for Towson Fans. I’m done with this coaching regime. Mr Optimistic no more. Zero confidence. I want change. This guy served and is counted. Time to pass the torch.

Impossible to watch Oakland take down Kentucky and not realize why some of us so desperately want new leadership for Towson’s program to possibly improve our chances for a similar shot at glory. But hey, I should just be grateful we get our coveted 20 wins a year. 😉

Is there a 3rd choice?

I think it would be pretty to find a coach of his caliber except I am not sure there is one who in 13 years has not been to a conference final. A half million for a guy who cant even get to a mediocre conferences finals is not one worth retaining.

First of all, thank you for your financial donations. It is appreciated that you make that choice out of loyalty to the program. I can't argue with most of this, but I don't agree with propping yourself up as bigger fans than the rest of us. Everyone expresses fandom differently. I would probably have season tickets if I lived there, but I don't so I support them in a different way. What people do with their finances is their own business, and I don't view at as being bigger or better fans than others. I appreciate your call for a change and you have a lot of valid points, but it doesn't mean you are right, more knowledgeable or better informed than everyone else on here. There are a lot of different ways to run a program that can be successful. I actually agree that we may be hitting a point where there is not much room for improvement, however I think there are also arguments against that when you look at the last three years (I know that is slicing and dicing the argument that probably should be made over a longer time period). You also have to take into account that I believe there have been five presidents and three ADs since Skerry started. They will all have different views. Waddell hired him, Leonard extended him, and Eigonbrot has seen probably the best three-year stretch in this program's D-1 history since we actually made the NCAA Tournament. That doesn't mean it is good enough, but I think you all have a distorted view on how our AD should see things. He doesn't have the baggage the rest of us do. That doesn't mean we should hold back from expressing our disappointment. I have some of the same complaints and can't blame you for hitting a point where you are beyond frustrated, but I do think there are valid reasons for being supportive of Skerry too. I appreciate the different viewpoints on this board. It is the reason I still come here as an out-of-state fan. Also, anyone who is coming to this message board on a regular basis, which is generally an outdated way of doing this these days, deserves credit for being a pretty big fan of Towson. To rank where we all stand doesn't really make too much sense to me.

3 outlier examples out of hundreds upon hundreds of coaches. Good things might come to an extremely small (see microscopic) group of coaches, but, with all due respect, that argument is weak tea. If you want to settle for 6-12 in the conference tournament, without ever having played in the title tournament game, god bless you. I’ve let the man work and support the F’ing team with yearly season tickets, TAF and NIL donor. If this is his best, his best ain’t good enough. Good grief. “Good things come to those who wait”? That’s the defense of this guy? If I wait much longer, I’ll be watching from behind the pearly gates (I hope) When does this ceaseless argument, from his small handful of supporters, about Pat Kennedy, have an expiration date!!! Unbelievable

Gymnastics win the EAGL today for the second straight year https://x.com/towson_gym/status/1771724072923144586?s=46&t=nScacl1TWT-KyOwj5stBaw

Believe me, I ask myself that very question often.

I wasn’t trying to say I or anyone else is a bigger fan. If it came off that way, I apologize. Im fortunate enough to live close, in Baltimore (if you consider that fortunate 😂), and work in Towson, so it makes it easy for me to attend games and other events. I was calling out that poster who said to support the team. I do and always will even though I no longer support the coach. Seeing around 20 games in person a year and watch pretty much everyone on flo or whatever is different than some of the others who listen to spiro (lol) and comment after. Appreciate your post and there are lots of good points. We have hit our ceiling under skerry. It is and was time to move on. He did an overall good job but can’t do anymore. Always thought he would be a better Athletics administrator than coach. As tired as you and others on here may be of me repeating the same things, it goes both way and I tire of the lame excuses for pat. 361 other teams would have moved on by now, but not us.

Charles Thompson nominated for Defensive Player of the Year https://x.com/caabasketball/status/1772357005690245557?s=46&t=nScacl1TWT-KyOwj5stBaw

I’d say welcome to the dark side, but have a feeling you will be back to your hopefully self in a few weeks and putting non refundable deposits down on tourney sites for 2025 😂

I am stuck in the middle of the two arguments. Greg Kampe is probably the best example and I was going to put the link to his bio for reference. He was in D2 for his 13 years and his team won never won more than one game in the conference tournament in six tries, and took until his 12th year to finish first in the conference. When they moved to D-1 in his 14th year, they weren't eligible to win the tournament for his four years. He did not win a conference tournament game in the first three years he was eligible and then in his 22nd year and 8th year in D-1 he made his first trip to the NCAA Tournament and won three conference tournament games. Since that trip, his team has won the conference tournament three more times and they got their first win in the NCAA Tournament this year. https://goldengrizzlies.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster/coaches/greg-kampe/1764 It took Larranaga until year 15 to get to his first NCAA Tournament, but he did it in year two at George Mason so they didn't have to wait long. I didn't have the patience to dig back through the Bowling Green conference tournament record to see what he did there, but the one big difference is they pulled off a number of upsets and had Antonio Daniels play in the NBA. He was off and running once he made the NCAA Tournament the first time going to another one two years later and NITs in two of the following three years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Larrañaga James Jones is actually a decent case study because in his first 15 season he had a below .500 record. When his team finished tied for first in 2014-15 Harvard went because of the tiebreaker. If we didn't have a conference tournament this would have happened in Benimon's last year with Delaware getting the tiebreaker. If we didn't have a conference tournament, Towson would have ended its drought in 2021-22 with the tiebreaker over UNC-W. Of course, we also would have been the Big South champs under Truax in 1994. The next year Jones finally got over the hump. He has been three times since (would have been four if not for COVID). The big difference and probably benefit to Jones is there was no Ivy League Tournament to judge him on. It was all the regular-season and he generally finished in the top 3 or 4 in most of his first 15 seasons similar to Skerry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Jones_(basketball,_born_1964) I say I am in middle because while I am not holding pitchfork asking to fire Skerry, he has several major differences to these guys that I see (although some of these will be generalizations that I am not sure I can fully quantify). The four things I am mainly critical of Skerry for is lack of getting to a conference tournament final, lack of a signature non-conference win in many tries, not seeing many of his players drastically improve while being here, and playing a style that at times can be tough to watch. I think the best argument for Skerry is the last three years. In a chaotic period of time in NCAA D-1 Basketball, he has turned over the roster a decent amount and done a solid job of roster management to pull in good transfers to keep us competitive. We have finished 1st, t-3rd and 4th, are 66-35 overall and 38-16 the last three year years. The last three years Hofstra is 41-13, Charleston and UNC-W are 39-15 and we are 38-16 in conference play. I know it is relatively small progress, but we went from a no-show against Delaware in the 2022 semis, to hanging with a very good Charleston team in the 2023 semis for 33 minutes to blowing what should have been at trip to the finals this year. I know this isn't really a good thing, but this year was also the first time in Skerry's tenure we beat a team seeded higher than us in the conference tournament (although we almost didn't get there with a bad performance against William & Mary to be fair). My point here is there has been some progress, and if you were Eigonbrot who has been around for a good part of this three-year period why would you contemplate firing Skerry. You wouldn't. My point in all this is I am very frustrated with what Skerry can't do and don't completely rule out the crowd that wants him fired now, but there is good and bad. This shouldn't stop us from trying to replace him if there ever was a desire by the AD to do so, but it wouldn't be easy to find a coach of his quality to replace him. He has been very solid. We need him to be better. He has taken small steps in the right direction the last three years, but there are a lot of ways and his previous years can be ammunition for and against his case.

This should be the natural evolution of things. Young up and comer has success at a mid-major, which he parlays into bigger job, but leaves the mid-major in a position to sustain success with a replacement up and comer. Somehow, this recipe didn’t work with Skerry. No coach who’s never even been to his conference tournament final should be entering year 14 at the same school, but I’m beating a dead horse here

Byington leaving Harrisonburg for Vanderbilt

Stayed up late and got the complete Nick experience. Makes a few shots early and FTs, struggles defensively and winds up in foul trouble. He sits early in the second half, scores some, gives up some, makes a late three, misses a front end of a one-and-one and then is fouled with KU up one on a block from behind that was no foul. But to his credit, he made both FTs. Was left open all night and it helped to have Dickinson back on the floor.

Screw Izzo. Go Oakland Golden Grizzlies!

Whoever UVA turns down....add them to the list

#skerryball4evee

My tournament allegiances are as follows Dayton (wife) Creighton (mom & dad) St. Peter’s (dad undergrad)

Here's the list. The ones in bold have also not been to a conference championship game since the last time we were in one. The ones with asterisks are those who are D1 veterans and never been or have droughts longer than us: Army** Bethune Cookman** Bowling Green** Brown** Cal Baptist Central Arkansas Chicago State** Citadel** Columbia** Dartmouth** Denver Elon Fort Wayne High Point Houston Christian Idaho** Idaho State** Incarnate Word Jacksonville** Kansas City** LA Tech** LeMoyne Lindenwood Loyola Marymount** Maine** Marist** Merrimack NJ Tech New Hampshire** North Alabama Omaha Presbyterian Queens Quinnipiac Rice** Sac State Sacred Heart Seattle** SIU-Ed South Dakota Southern Indiana St. Thomas Stonehill Tarleton State Tennessee Tech** Texas A&M Commerce Toledo** UMASS-Lowell UC Riverside VMI** USC Upstate UMES** UC San Diego UT Martin UTRGV Utah Valley Western Illinois** William & Mary** Youngstown State**

Congrats to Stetson, Grambling, and Duquesne for punching their tickets to the Dance. For the Hatters and Tigers, it's their first time. For the Dukes, first time since 1977. That now leaves 59 D1 teams who either have never been to the Tournament or have a longer drought than we do.

Just like the men’s team. Can’t close it out. Towson athletics ladies and gents

Can he defend? Can he rebound?

Watching Howard-Norfolk State for financial reasons and I catch the name Allen Betrand after a basket. Yep, same one. On his 4th school. Maybe he'll get to the Tourney via this route.