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So, I’m driving yesterday when I get a phone call. I recognized the prefix (704) as being associated with TU, so I decide to answer. And who’s on the other end of the line but Charles Thompson, calling to thank me for being a season ticket holder, as part of a campaign where players are calling season ticket holders. We had a brief conversation and I must say he was extremely articulate and personable, and I came away thinking what an excellent ambassador he is not just for the team, but the university as well. I have no doubt he will be a success in whatever endeavors he pursues once he leaves TU

C’mon man, that’s weak. We just went on the road, against a ranked team, in front of the largest crowd in their history, spotted them a 17-point lead, and then ripped their hearts out with a stunning 34-0 run, and this snarky response is the best you can do? Would have been better if you just exercised your right to remain silent 🤫

The back and forth of this game reminded me a little of that wild Coastal Carolina OT win years and years ago. Kudos to the kids for never giving up on it even though they kept allowing scores. Bad news though...this just gave UNH the tiebreaker for a playoff bid over us if it comes down to that. IYKYK

I still think it’s too early to proclaim Shinnick a bad hire. Things weren’t always rosy with Gordy and Rob and there were some mind boggling losses with them as well. I’m one of those that pretty much wrote this season off before it began. Need I remind you that Ambrose went 3-19 in his first 2 seasons.

Definitely sounds like things are being done differently this year:

It’s almost that time again for the Tigers of the volleyball variety, who were unanimously picked to win the CAA for a 5th consecutive season. If you are a casual supporter of the team without much volleyball knowledge, I’ll give you a four-word rundown: you should be excited. The Tigers return basically all of their best players from a team that went 29-2 last year, including the two best attackers in the conference, Outside Hitter Victoria Barrett and Opposite Nina Cajic. All of the key players that they did lose have clear replacements: Fay Bakidimou’s graduation will be mitigated by the arrival of Julia Lenik, a highly-touted prospect from Poland, while losing Lydia Wiers in the middle clears the way for Erin Brothers to step in, who had to sit on the bench all of last season despite being good enough to start for any other team in the conference. Sarah Jordan, who made the all-rookie team last season, returns to start at setter again this year, while Middle Hitter Aayinde Smith, Opposite Irbe Lazda, and Libero Rachel Hess all have 2 years of experience in the starting lineup. Of the other new faces, the most interesting one is not a new face at all, but rather an eyebrow-raising transfer: Opposite Zyare Abdul-Rahim, who spent the last 4 seasons battling against Towson for Hofstra, has chosen to utilize her Covid year to transfer home to Baltimore, to play for the team that originally passed on her, and her old team’s biggest rival. It’s just another in a long line of events sure to make Towson and Hofstra hate each other even more than they already did. As for the Tigers’ competition, Delaware was picked to finish second in the CAA, and they do look the part. They too are returning almost their entire starting lineup, including 2022 POTY Lani Mason. Last year’s runners-up will be tough and experienced, but still don’t look to be a significant challenge to the ultra-talented Tigers. Hofstra was picked 3rd, and will also be at least as strong as they were last year. Overall, the CAA will likely take a step forward from 2022, as many key players are returning, and the addition of a solid program in Campbell also strengthens the league. Even so, the Tigers appear head-and-shoulders above the rest.

Dude c’mon. Today’s not the day

It’s hard to tell when you’re joking vs when you are actively trying to scare away towson fans and call for the football program to be disbanded

Second part Charles Thompson and Radhir Hicks have entered the meeting. Pat Skerry on both players “I meant what I said earlier. These guys have done outstanding jobs as leaders since Memorial Day. We have really good quarterbacking play in Radhir, who has changed his body. He shot really well this weekend. Charles has had as good an off-season as anyone we’ve ever had. These two guys have a big responsibility. They are just outstanding people as well as good players.” Charles on coming back to Towson “I was going to be a football guy at first. Skerry convinced me to play basketball in college. When I was in high school, I remember how Skerry was hitting me up every day. He said, ‘I want you here.’ That played a huge role in my decision. I love the guy. He showed faith in me since Day 1. He told me when I was 17 that I didn’t have to score a basket to play for him as long as I played hard and rebounded. That’s been the truth since today. He hasn’t lied to me since I’ve been here so here I am.” On Canada trip Radhir “We had a great time. We got to travel and get some early games in. We saw a different country and Montreal was a whole new world for us. They speak more French. It was a cool trip.” Charles “Toronto was more like kind of like a New York a bit. Montreal felt like we’re not in America.” How did it help them improve as a team? Charles “It’s hard playing against each other all summer. At one point, we know how we play against each other. We don’t know how other teams play or how we’re going to play together. It was nice being able to see how other guys play off each other. We had lineups with like Me, Messiah, CMay, Radhir and Tyler Tejada. Then we had Tomiwa (Sulaiman) at the 4 and 3. We were able to different things over Canada. It helped us jell early on. We have a bunch of new guys.” Hicks “It’s always nice to get game reps and play against other bodies and react to see how we do.” On 3 pointers Skerry “We led the CAA (Conference play) in three-point shooting last year and we were first or second the year before. From an analytical stand point, what we’d like to do is that 35% of our shots be threes. We’d like to make 35-36% of those shots. We’re trying to get take 10% of our shots from 8 feet to the 3-point line. We want red-zone shots (0-8ft) and 3-pointers.” Skerry on NIT ruling “It’s a bad rule right now. Hopefully, it’s a short-term thing. Heard the rumblings that Fox Sports is trying to take some teams….it’s a terrible rule. You won’t have the best teams in the country playing. If you have teams playing below .500 playing postseason basketball, that’s really bad. I think you’ll see the CBI get a lot stronger moving forward. The negative to that. I’m on the NABC congress, I represent our conference. There was zero talk about that. The customer service from the NCAA was incredibly disappointing.” Richard Kent on NIT “They are going to take the two highest NET teams from the Power 6 conferences who are not in the NCAA Tournament. You can take a 13-19 Penn State team who has a NET of 68 and not take a 28-5 team that has a NET of 75, that lost in the CAA Final. Which I think is unmitigated nonsense.” Charlie and Rad on new guys Charles on Sulaiman “My new guy is Tomiwa. I thought he was more of a 4 or a 5. When he got here, he just shoots the ball really well. If you contest T’s shot and he misses, that’s not because of you, but because of what T did. He’s always shot-ready. He plays defense really hard.” Radhir on Makhi Lowery “Ki is a great defender and great athlete. On offense, he creates a lot of opportunities. He’s a good playmaker and has great size. He’s definitely a player to look out for.” (Datres) What was the No. 1 thing they looked to improve in the offseason? Charlie “Decision-making. I’m going to have the ball in my hands a lot. It’s not a secret. I have to make better decisions with the ball. Less turnovers. Knowing when I want to hit my shots, when to pass out of the post and how I want to get the ball. I’m far along with that and I’ll be ready when the season starts next week.” Radhir “My outside shot. I put a lot of reps this summer. Went to the gym a lot. Put a lot of work in.” What’s the status of Nendah Tarke Skerry “Bullis School. He’s practicing with us. He’s a good player. Terry Porter and Steve are working on it. We’re in the middle of a waiver process. We filed it the day after Labor Day. Very frustrating. We have not had any bad news. I’m guardedly optimistic that the right thing will happen. I’m not going into the details. It’s an interesting story. We certainly need him and we certainly need him. He’ll be able to make an impact. He’s got good size. He’s excellent defensively. Pass it, drive it. Would certainly help us. I wouldn’t be surprised that mid-week on how far the NCAA is behind on waivers. They implemented this transfer rule and they had to think there would be waivers and they must not be staffed well. There are a lot of big non-conference games where teams are waiting on kids.” On deadline for Tarke? “It could drag into the season based on what happened in football. We hope not. I will say Terry and Steve have worked very hard on it and are using every available resource. We haven’t heard any negative news. We’re hopeful that it’s sooner than later.” In the CAA, who is he most concerned about? “All of them. I hope our conference has a really good non-conference run. Those league games will come more meaningful. Those top four teams when they played, those were high-level games. We had a down year that there wasn’t as much parity. It’s way too early, who is going to be great and not being great. One of our things are interesting. I wouldn’t judge a lot from non-conference. There are 3-4 teams that schedule aggressively. There are some teams that are good that don’t schedule aggressively. Now, we had 14 teams. Unbalanced scheduling. Hofstra had a tremendous year. The way it broke for them, it wasn’t as challenging for Charleston, UNCW or Delaware.” Me on what they accomplished in the closed scrimmages “We’re looking for a measure of consistency. What I like about the group is that when we lock in on something, we get better at that. We have to make sure that we don’t slip in other areas. Both games were very, very close. Some of that was good. Some of that was disappointing. Both teams were good. The hope that we could go on the road. Colorado will be on the road. You always have a lot of regrets as a coach. We’ve had a lot of close games in those big opponent games on the road. We have to play at a high level. Energy, toughness and execution. The hope that playing some good teams would helps us get ready for us.” On close games “The entire season. Starting with me, we didn’t do a good enough job in those. I expect this group to be in a lot of close games. We’re built for that. Hopefully, we’ll be successful in that. We’re really committed defensively. It’s a connected group. Starting with Charlie and Rad, the way they talk to each other. We have to make sure that we have that Towson toughness and physically impose our will. I’d like another 30 days of practice. It’s almost go time. We have another week of practice. We have to make some strides in a couple of areas.” On Jaiden Cole “He’s been practicing in and out. It likes he’s grown since he’s gotten here. He can really shoot the ball. There’s a window for him to get in the mix and help us out. Like anything you know, when you try and put him in with the rest of the team, it’s getting him back 100%. We’re behind schedule there. I feel for Jaiden because he’s a gym-rate. I’m disappointed that he’s behind schedule.” On Chase Paar “I’m proud of him. He’s lost about 27 pounds. He’s tried to lean out. He’s been practicing every day. We slowly got him back, He can certainly help us. He’s a high IQ guy and has been through a lot. He’s actually shown a lot of courage this year. He has a slight tear in his knee and has been gutting it out. The fact that he’s lost a lot of weight has helped him.”

Great. He should be first in something

There you go again, Advocating for the shut down of TU Football. Why don't you just shut your pie hole.

Only Towson fans, many whom asked for Rob Ambrose to get the axe because he was mediocre, arrogant and mean, want to fire his successor and cut the program after four games and one horrible loss. Disappointed? Beyond. Frustrated? Of course. This program has been through so much shit over the past 50+ years that a bad loss or bad season is not going to destroy us.

Actually, the ‘11-‘13 campaigns saw 5k in student attendance. Sure, they may have left at halftime, but it was a great atmosphere. Tailgating means everything to college football and the general student population. Winning is not as big a factor as you may believe. Nobody cares about Towson vs Norfolk or Bryant or Monmouth. The average student would have some interest in a game against ‘Nova, JMU, Richmond, W&M, ODU and Delaware. The current CAA not a sustainable model.

I attended TU about the same years you did. I was also apart of that marketing team. We definitely had the tools that made it easy to market sports but we also put in work work. We contacted every football alum with letters and calls to assure they attended the Lehigh game. We were miles better than what we have now. We hit endless community events, had a social media plan, and put docs page to use. We had a presence on campus with posters, fliers, and player participation. Sports had a slight increase in attendance before the winning. We had great leaders too, Mike Hollis was an engine. It shows because he’s worked in the NBA with the nets and is now working in the NHL. As soon as he left I started to see marketing decisions that made zero sense. Waddell came and we went into overdrive, he didn’t play around but was great. He once sent an intern home for wearing Terp gear and I loved it. The Waddell & Hollis combo was unmatched.

Oh yeah miss Debbie (I think that’s her name) was always a sweetheart. Like an IHOP/Waffle House waitress asking “how you babies doin?”

Nice win. Clearly making progress each week with signs of improvement across most (not all) position groups. Will this most likely be a 3 or 4 win season? Yes. Is that unexpected or unacceptable for a first-year coach? Of course not. Still very bullish on Shinnick and his long-term plan. Go Tigers!

Hey everyone, tonight at 8:30, I'll be hosting a Twitter Spaces with a reporter from Maryland. Feel free to join to hear about the matchup from Towson's and Maryland's perspectives.

He handled some tough questions well but he did have his usual bravado. “I worked with wake forest and USFL guys in Birmingham, and guys are asking me what do you think of this? I could be a football analyst or broadcaster cause I’m really smart” I’m glad his smug ass is gone. Positivity Pete is a breath of fresh air

When you’ve been no class your entire existence on here, you’re not just gonna magically find any. Maybe Pat should hire him since he’s God’s gift to basketball knowledge. I have said this many times - the ignore feature is a glorious thing. That and not quoting the trash will make the board experience much better.

Can you show some class on here for once? How about some respect in wrapping up a 41 year career - that's an impressive accomplishment.

Ok, here is the first part of the State of the Union mainly about NIL. I’ll do the second part tomorrow night Towson Basketball State of the Union Skerry Opening Comments (Thanks everyone, Cale Kupa, Brian Finn, Meredith Crawford) (Richard Kent, runs Student Athlete Name Image and Likeness (SANIL) Gold Collective) Pat Skerry “We start out next Monday against Colorado, a top 25 program. Our guys have been here since Memorial Day. We’ve had 24 days of practice. It’s a hard-working and connected group. Love the leadership, especially of Charlie and Rahdir. They’ve set the tone, especially on the defensive end of the floor. We’re going to play a lot of guys. We’ve arguably have the best young guys we’ve ever had in the program. We’ll get great challenge early in our non-conference schedule. Hopefully we’ll have a good crowd at the Robert Morris game. Going down to the Charleston Classic. A top 3-4 pre-season tournament. Will be on one of the ESPN networks. Start with a top 10 team in Houston. “ “In our program, we’ve looked at basketball as showcasing our athletic department and our great university. Anytime we can play on national TV, we want to be able to do that. The last couple of years after the pandemic, we’ve had a lot of those opportunities. I have to thank Steve Eigenbrot and Mike Gathigan in what they’ve done with Monumental Sports Network (formerly NBC Sports Washington). We have a lot of games on that again. The opportunity for people to watch us on linear TV is important for the program, athletics and our ability to attract and attain high-level athletes that fit at Towson.” “As we try to grow that GOH Collective to help our student athletes. Richard Kent is a sports lawyer who specializes in NIL. Works for SANIL, who manages our GOH Collective. He jumped a the opportunity to talk about what they do.” Richard Kent, sports lawyer in Westport, Connecticut “It is the Wild West out there. The US Supreme Court decided the Alston Case that in May of 2021 that student-athletes could benefit, get additional educational benefits for their name, image and likeness. It was a 9-0 decision….About six weeks later, we had 38 states enacting legislation to facilitate this. The NCAA basically abdicated…very few rules and regulations. There are some federal bills that have been introduced by Tommy Tuberville, Joe Manchin, Richard Blumenthal, but given what has been going in our country right now, I don’t know if that’s going to be a priority. Name, Image, and Likeness permits student-athletes to make money off their name of name, image, and likeness, but it’s not pay for play. In other words, Pat can’t recruit somebody and say ‘if you come to Towson, and we’ll give you $50,000’. What he can say is that we have a ‘GOH Collective and some of our student-athletes are benefitting from it.’ Now, student-athletes can’t benefit from any products, from a marketing perspective, that are alcohol, tobacco or gambling products. As about 5-6 months ago, universities can be involved to help to facilitate deals. They can’t initiate deals, but they can help facilitate deals. What is the difference with NIL at a mid-major like Towson, let’s say juxtaposed against an Oklahoma or a Rutgers, who we also do business. It’s largely going to retention device for Pat at Towson. In other words, if he has a freshman that blows up and averages 15 ppg, 5rpg and 3ap, that kid is going to get poached by Xavier, Marquette, Creighton. Based on numbers that we’re seeing, he could be offered $150,000, $200,000, $250,000. I know two kids that basically could be a fifth starter at Power Six programs and they both got in the range of $350,000. So you may ask, what does a mid-major collective really have in it’s coffers. I would say the numbers range on the low end from $175,000-$200,000 to the high end of about $500,000. That money is administered by us at SANIL and it is administered pursuant to getting kids opportunities with businesses, on campus, large social media followings on Twitter/Instagram to help market products hopefully by Towson graduates. In part, what I’m saying today is a call to arms. It’s ugly out there. There is pay for play at a lot of universities. Not at Towson, that’s for sure. None that we’re affiliated with and we’re affiliated with 32 of them. There is pay for play. We do everything by the book, so does Pat and Towson. Towson needs everybody’s help on this Zoom to have a decent-size collective and decent-size war chest to avoid its student-athletes get raided. Quite frankly, that’s going on everywhere. It’s going in Power Five programs and mid-majors.. Actually, some of the low mid-majors are telling student-athletes to come to this school, you’ll start here and after a year-or-two that you’ll be marketable to a Power 6 or higher level mid major and you’ll make $200,000. That’s how bad it is. Recognizing that those kids are not even going to stay that the university for 3-4 years. Come here and play here for a year or two. That is my pitch and I’d be happy to answer any of your questions. Questions Where do they come from? “Donations that have come into Towson are donations from alumni. I don’t know specifically. I didn’t do a deep dive today or preparation for this. I don’t know where they reside. My hunch is that their local and primarily on the East Coast.” On the innerworkings of NIL and how do people donate? “I would Google the GOH Collective and look at the website. Just do some reading. There is so much literature out there. There are textbooks about it and this is only two years old (He teaches it). If we did this Zoom in two years, I’m willing to tell that student-athletes will probably get a piece of the pie by way of revenue sharing at the Power Six schools. That would make collectives at mid-majors even more important.” Why would somebody donate to the collective instead of donating to the athletic department? “The donations to the athletic department are not NIL-directed donations so they don’t go to the student-athletes. They go to infrastructure. I would assume. I don’t know intimately about the Towson Athletic Fund and where the dollars go. As of October 2023, those dollars cannot be used to student-athletes to endorse products or alumni ventures.” The NIL donations are not tax-deductible? “They are not. A couple of universities tried to get cute. And develop a charitable arm (501c3), but the IRS issued rulings and regulations that doesn’t pass muster.” Kent asking Pat Skerry How much does NIL come up in his recruitment and retention of players” “Good question. It certainly comes up in recruiting and we try and stay away from that. For us, the concept of a collective is really important when you have a student-athlete is here for all the right reasons. Loves Towson. Is having a good experience in the classroom and on the court. You can help facilitate as a retention tool. We’ve been fortunate that we’ve retained student-athletes but where it becomes alarming or concerning is that we’re coming off the best two-year stretch in school history and we went 3-of-4 in signing high school kids last fall and it’s a good yield. We also went 3-for-10 in the spring because a lot of those were what I call transitional type of recruiting. It’s for real. What’s excites me about the program right now, especially when we’re about to sign two outstanding high school kids next week, is that we have a lot of health and talent in the program. Expect to have another strong season and every retention to skyrocket that and retain a lot of our good players.” Richard Kent “I was on a Zoom at 5pm today with a school (nameless). They said an ACC school offered two of their players $50,000 each after their freshman year to leave. All this school could do was offer $10,000 to stay and both of those kids stayed because they loved that university. Even though the incremental difference was huge, at least that university could say that we have a collective. We have money in our collective and we can help you out here. I was told point blank that if we had zero in our collective or no collective, we never would have retained those kids.” For Pat or Steve, from a CAA perspective, where does Towson stand in NIL raised-money Steve Eigenbrot “We’re fairly well positioned in the conference. We haven’t fallen behind other than CofC. They have close to a million dollars in their collective. They have a group of private individuals step up and do it. Richard and his company serviced that role for us that has some positives and negatives. The private individual running it helps because that individual has a network and people that they know. There are a couple of kids on Hofstra’s team that landed NIL deal to get there. Where we are now and the investment what we’ve raised, where in a position to be competitive. Pat and I are a little bit frustration about raising money for NIL at this point. As people get more into basketball, having the framework of SANIL and some of the decisions made administratively, we’re in the middle of the pack and position to be competitive with our peers. There is a kid from Stony Brook who transferred to College of Charleston. Not sure if that was an NIL deal. The haves and have nots are starting to form in the CAA and I think we’re in the position to be up in the top ½ of the conference. There are couple of schools that don’t have anything going on.” “We just had our CAA meetings and what I told everything in our league is that we need to try and talk about NIL as much as we can in social media platforms to make sure people understand that NIL is real in the CAA. It’s not just Nick Timberlake going to Kansas or (Estrada) going to Alabama. It’s a thing that we all have to wrap our arms around. We’re squarely in the middle.” Richard Kent on Title IX “One thing I’d like to mention that I’m often asked is that whether Title IX is implicated. It’s not implicated yet, because the universities cannot be directly involved. Two or three years down the road, the universities will be directly implicated and then you’re going to have Title IX issues. Female and male athletes are going to need commensurate NIL opportunities.” Pat on NIL. High schoolers and transfers “It’s a potpourri. We’ve always tried to get good high school guys and retain them. Charles Thompson. There’s no better representative of a Towson athlete. Nick Timberlake was here for five years. We need to continue to attract really good talent. We have that with Christian May and Dylan Williamson. People are going to like Tyler Tejada and Mehki Lowery pretty quickly. They have to be a good fit. Good students and good people. We have to get those kind of kids. We do have to supplement those kids in the spring with transfers. It makes sense to try and stay older. For us, it’s 2-3 high school kids early and maybe a couple late would probably be our familiar.”

Agreed. Give them a little time to build their team. Seems the intended system is not in place bc of current personnel. They're doing the best they can with the guys they have.

Some good news, for a change