Tiger93

I thought this before today, but I was going to say it will be all or mostly chalk. The only upset I am calling, slight as it may be, is Hampton over Northeastern. I have a feeling Elon will take down Drexel, but that is mostly a toss-up. I know I will regret saying this, but I am more nervous about the quarterfinal than the potential semifinal (even though that is where we always hit our head on the ceiling). With the general draw the equation of UNCW always beats Charleston, Charleston always beats Towson, Towson always beats UNCW would work out for us. We just need to avoid something dumb in the quarters (like Winthrop 1993) or in stupid the semifinals (a few more ghosts of 1994 Liberty, 2014 William & Mary, and 2022 Delaware). I will maintain positive mindset that we can avoid that. I think it is us and UNCW in the final, and that game is mostly a toss-up. I will be out of the country likely without internet for most or possibly all of the trip. I ask us all to embrace our inner Bay Area Tiger and think positive thoughts. I hope to return to message board celebrations and NCAA Tournament plans. Let's go Tigers!

Towson is tied for the 10th best conference winning percentage in the nation. Here is the list of teams. McNeese .947 (18-1 Duke .944 (17-1) Houston .944 (17-1) St. Mary's .944 (17-1) Akron .938 (15-1) Auburn .938 (15-1) Utah Valley .929 (13-1) Yale .923 (12-1) St. John's .895 (17-2) Clemson .889 (16-2) Louisville .889 (16-2) Towson .889 (16-2) UC San Diego .889 (16-2) Last year, only seven teams had a 16-2 conference record or better. 'Five of those seven teams made the NCAA Tournament. Two of them were UConn and St. Mary's who have big enough reputations and conferences that they don't count. Vermont went 15-1 and made it, McNeese went 17-1 and made it, and Colgate went 16-2 and made it. South Florida was 16-2 and got knocked out of the AAC semifinals and didn't make it, and Appalachian State was 16-2 and lost in the Sun Belt semifinals and didn't make it.

This game really showed a lot of the best and worse of Towson all at the same time. We have credited this team with figuring out all sorts of different ways to win. Well, with 6:26 left in the game Beal Jr. put Hampton up 63-58. From that point on, Towson went 6-7 from the field including seven of Tarke's eight second-half points, the biggest of which came on a personal 5-0 run that tied the game ta 63. Different guys have stepped up and made plays all year, and it does give me some confidence that in a tight game we will find answers. Williamson continues to really shine with big second-halfs. After Tarke (12 points in 1st half) and Tejada (15 in first half) carried us offensively with 27 of the 39 points in the first half, Williamson led the way with 11 points in the second half. his three-point to make it 73-69 with 12 seconds left appeared to be the clincher until we tried to give the game away. Speaking of which, while we have done a good job of closing out games there have been some spells of mistakes that have either let a team creep back in or given the opponent a chance to win. We tried to give it away on errant pass at 73-72, and were lucky that Hampton didn't cash in on it. One of the strengths of this team has been limiting its turnovers, but because of the low possession count we have we need to be on fire shooting to blow anyone out. That means we will have tight games with important possessions a lot. It doesn't matter if we have low turnovers counts if we make a mistake like we did yesterday. We have to limit the sloppiness, and complete eradicate the play not to lose attitude that has bitten us in past tournaments. My other worry is after limiting opposition to under 50% FG the entire conference season, our past two opponents have shot 51.0% and 50.8% from the field. Credit Hampton who made some really tough shots yesterday. Farrakhan, Beale Jr. and Long were all pains in the ass. Long and Mullen also did what we thought a lot more teams would be able to do this year, and used their bigger bodies to push us around. Jones, who does an amazing job battling for rebounds, got pushed out of position at least 2-3 times under the glass and was whistled for fouls trying to get back in that position. Hampton not only shot over 50%, but they also had eight more field goals attempts than we did. That was the third-highest FG attempt margin by an opponent in a game this year (NC A&T was one of the others in complete garbage time; Kent State was the other one). This was also the first time we shot under 70% from the free-throw line since Feb. 1 against Drexel. These guys have worked hard to be better at free-throw shooting in conference play, and to me that aspect and the decrease in turnovers is what makes this team different from past Skerry Tiger teams. However, they are both easy things to have go bad in one-game scenarios. Credit Tarke for his most efficient game of the season getting 20 points on 7-9 from the field. His 4-7 FT shooting left something to be desired, but him and Williamson somehow got this game over the finish line. It was only the fourth time he has scored double-figure on single-digit FG attempts, and the other games he had 10, 12 and 13. We talk about Williamson's offensive prowess and his clutch shooting a lot, but one thing worth pointing out is his assist-to-turnover ratio is 16-1 the last three games. For the year, he is at 81-47 and he is 58-28 in conference play. He is one of two players averaging over 30 minutes per game on this team, and we really need him to take care of the ball in D.C. I feel like if we win the CAA Tournament, he will have a big shot down the stretch in all of those games. Lowery and Embeya have been amazing at coming in and flipping momentum in games, and Lowery should get credit for hitting the shot that put is up 65-63 as part of 7-0 run, but neutralizing Lowery and Embeya was something that Hampton did very well. Together they only had six rebounds in 37 minutes, and Lowery was a -15 while Embeya was a -12. Lowery did go to the line a game-high eight times. Sulaiman also answered the "if the game is tight which Tiger do I want at the line down the stretch" question for me. Williamson and Tejada are good answers too, but Sulaiman just wants to be in the spot and you can tell. He also had a team-high three offensive rebounds. So let's celebrate 16 wins, because we are only the sixth CAA team to do it. Three of those five teams went to the NCAA Tournament, Hofstra didn't do it in a year that Charleston was also 16-2. Drexel didn't do it in a very loaded CAA and ended up winning two games in the NIT. The league is similar to 2022-23, but very different than the other seasons. Still, the consistency of winning regular-season basketball might be hard to translate to the randomness of the conference tournament. That is the challenge for this year's group. For whatever reason, we have not shown up well as tournament favorite. I think Skerry's teams have been more ready to play the last two years in big tournament games. Charleston was just better when it counted. I think this group has the right makeup to get the job done, but even the quarterfinals will be no picnic. Let's hope this is the year. Also, can we keep the negative talk of tournaments of the past until the games are over. This group deserves to be celebrated, and we need to project as much of our positivity on this group as we can. I am hoping to do my part to break our curse, as starting Sunday, March 9 I will be out of the country with little to no access to the internet until March 16. I hope to come back to a happy and celebratory message board. We are all rooting for the same thing. This is an amazing group of diehards, and our group, these amazing players, coaches, Spiro and all of the team staff deserve to bring this one home. Let's go Tigers!

I understand that viewpoint. I don't necessarily agree, but it is also a hypothetical where I don't think there is really a right or wrong answer. I definitely understand the logic behind it, I just think we will always be locked into a fear-the-worst mindset until this program breaks through. I just try to think about it from what would a team I don't care about want to do in the situation. The Caps had me trained this way until 2018, and Towson and the Orioles still have that stranglehold on my brain.

We may as well go for greatness in this league. Only five other teams have reached 16 wins in a conference season in CAA play. Why not make it six! Also, for a group of guys who just transferred in last year and are part of the yearly change atmosphere that is the NIL, Jones, Sulaiman and Tarke have had a tremendous impact in the effort and competitive spirit of this team. Their type of roles are the type that make some players give up and transfer, but they are part of this group that decided to stay almost fully intact. Both them and the coaching staff deserve credit for that. I think in the NIL era Senior Day and other ceremonies can be kind of dumb and meaningless, but these guys are true Tigers and deserve to be celebrated for what they have brought to this program. We are also 40-24 and 26-9 in conference play while they have been here. Hopefully, they are also part of shattering this damn Conference Tournament final and NCAA Tournament ceiling we have all had to endure.

Also interesting that four of the non-conference matchups we had were against teams that currently lead their conference. Bryant (America East), James Madison (Sun Belt), Robert Morris (Horizon) and St. Mary's (WCC) are all first place, and UC Irvine is a game out in a very competitive Big West race with UC San Diego. Of course, outside of St. Mary's and UC Irvine, the other three teams all have NET rankings worse than 150.

I had to twist and contort to come up with this list, but it is an exclusive one. Teams that have 15 or more conference wins, two or less conference losses and sit atop their conference. This list includes: Duke - 16-1 Houston - 16-1 St. John's 16-2 UC San Diego - 15-2 Towson - 15-2 McNeese - 17-1 St. Mary's 15-1 There are several teams (Akron - 14-1, Montana - 14-2, High Point 14-2, Auburn 14-1) knocking on the door, but hopefully we can bump the criteria up to 16 or more wins on Saturday. Duke, Houston, Yale (11-0), Auburn, Akron, Norfolk State (10-1), McNeese, Southern (13-1), St. Mary's and Utah Valley (12-1) are the only teams with one or less conference loss, and Yale is the only team undefeated in conference play.

Props to Sulaiman for being the spark tonight. Tejada and Williamson laid down the hammer once we were back in the game, but it was Sulaiman who lit the fuse. Hard to believe we were down 15 (47-32) after William & Mary's three to open the second half. Sulaiman's personal 8-0 run when we were down 49-36 changed the whole vibe of the game around, and even though we went down by nine again (53-44) you could feel that comeback was on. They kept us at bay for a little bit, but the 21-0 run from being down 55-53 at the 12:01 mark to being up 74-55 at the 4:35 mark was a thing of beauty. I know everything doesn't always have to relate to a past experience, but that second half felt a lot like the win against Delaware in the continuation game in 2022 in the sense that we got momentum and just buried our opponent. Williamson might be one of the best streak shooters I can remember in my time watching Towson basketball. He had 17 points on 6-8 FG (4-5 from 3pfg) in the second half. It feels like he has had at least 6 or 7 of those halfs over the past two years. Tejada's had 10 points in both halfs and 20 on the night. He just continues to work and find ways to score no matter what is happening. We have talked a lot about this the last couple of weeks, but I really believe if we can get this level of May for three games we will be cutting down the nets in D.C. Easier said then done, but certainly possible. Also, on top of Sulaiman's 15 points (13 in the second half), the game Lowery gave us off the bench was about as efficient as you can get. Nine points, 3-3 FG, 3-3 FT (which was amazing when they intentionally fouled him around the 4:30 mark), eight rebounds and a +16 in 22 minutes. Also, what a beast Embeya was on the boards. In 12 minutes of play, Embeya had more offensive rebounds (7) than William and Mary (5) had as a team on the night. It was mentioned before, but the 44-23 rebounding edge was a big statement, and even when we were down double-digits our guys wrestled away a lot of 50-50 balls from William & Mary. Our bench players had only two less rebounds (21) on the night than the whole William & Mary team. The bench guys really feel locked in on their roles, and that is good to see. I know Tarke had his second tough game in the last three, but even he had a couple of steals and gave a somewhat solid effort outside of his poor shooting performance. Someone commented on Towson playing fast, and I do agree that we did a fairly effective job with only nine turnovers against the press. Somehow we only had 64 possessions on the night and limited William & Mary to 63 (which is almost nine below their average). With the +21 rebounding margin and three less turnovers we had 16 more FG attempts (65-49) than they did. It was impressive that we outscored William & Mary 56-29 in the second half, but I am not even sure that does the second half justice. After giving up 44 in the first 20 minutes, William & Mary scored 11 points in the first 15:26 of the second half. Our defense was locked in that second half. I know there are two teams that make up part of the equation, but the level of our defense might be the No. 1 factor in what we can do in D.C. (I have changed my mind on the keys 2 or 3 different times). That level of defense was why everyone picked us to win the league at the beginning of the year, and when we reach that level we are the best team in this league pretty decisively. It is a hard level to reach, but the defense and athleticism are our x-factors. Offensively in the second half, we scored on 24 of our 33 possessions (and I think it would be 24 of 31 if you took away the final two). We also shot 17-26 (65.4%) from the field and 9-14 (64.3%) from three. I know the tournament is ultimately most of what matters, but it would be nice to set a new school-record for most conference wins in a season. Also, the CAA has played 18-game schedules in all but two seasons since 2001-02. I know the conference was a lot better in the 2000s before a lot of really good programs left. However, I still think it should be celebrated if we win on Saturday and reach 16 conference wins. If we beat Hampton, we join 2022-23 Hofstra and Charleston (16-2), 2011-12 Drexel (16-2), 2010-11 George Mason (16-2), and 2006-07 VCU (16-2) as what would be one of only six CAA teams to reach 16 conference victories.

I will defer to Datres, who so far is the only person I know who has bothered to figure the NIT's cumbersome KNIT formula. Anecdotally, this feels like one of the more down years the conference has had when you look at the top 5-6 teams NET ratings, but I may be wrong about that. Seems like that would make it tough to do. NCAA Tournament or bust.

Looks like the spread has settled at -6.5 with a 146.5 over-under. That ties the highest over-under we have had this year. The only other one that high was against Bryant, and the point total was 11.5 under (we did barely cover the 4-point spread that day). William & Mary plays at the fastest tempo in the league and is 27th in the nation, so this will be an interesting contrast in styles. Bryant (who is eighth) and UMBC (No. 25) are the only opponents we have played who are faster. We play the second-slowest temp of 347 in the conference behind Drexel who is 354th in the nation. We are 11 spots higher than last year when we sat at 358. Here is where the rest of the league sits according to KenPom: William & Mary (27), Delaware (37), Charleston (45), NC A&T (61, I think they were much higher before injuries), Northeastern (162), Monmouth (167), Campbell (262), UNCW (278), Hampton (282), Elon (298), Stony Brook (320), Hofstra (339), Towson (347), Drexel (354). As for May, I don't want to disrupt anything he is doing now. He just had his highest point total of the year in the last game. Also, he had only shot 50% from the field with 10 or more FG attempts once in the first 24 games, and has now done it three times in the last five games. We absolutely need him playing well offensively to do well in the conference tournament. I also want to go for a school-record 16 wins in conference play. I know ultimately that stat doesn't matter at all, and winning the conference tournament means so much more. However, why can't we do both. I always feel like when you can make history you should try. This isn't football. After Saturday, we won't play again until Sunday, March 9. We will get plenty of rest, and if anything I want to stay in rhythm as much as possible.

Need to stay focused on this game, but we still owe these guys a tournament beatdown from 2014. Behind 1994 and 2022, that was the most disappointing tournament as a Towson fan in my time following the program.

Your in-depth research is appreciated.

Did you figure that out by putting in all of the numbers, or is there a website or location where this information is calculated out already?

On the surface, it feels like getting balanced scoring and not turning it over could be the two biggest keys for success in the tournament. Those are pretty generic themes, but I do think limiting turnovers has been the reason why this team is finding ways to win close games. Even though in the micro, there still have been some games where it has gotten sloppy down the stretch.

That is a lot of work to find out the stupid KNIT score, but like you said probably pretty easy to figure out on the surface that we would not be ranked better than 125.