AtlantaTiger

The more I think about it, with regard to the SoCon being some type of "lifeline" for Towson, the more I believe it's imperative that Towson act quickly in engaging with the conference to explore those options.  In all reality, Elon and/or Campbell would be the far more logical fits to make that move from CAA to SoCon.....the southern footprint, the perceived academic fit, etc......I think it would be a race to see who could get in there first.  I suppose since Campbell more recently made the move to the CAA they would be less inclined to jump conferences, but I'd be stunned if Elon isn't already kicking the tires on that option.

Wouldn’t be surprised if the CAA extends offers to the likes of Wagner and Merrimack before too long and tries to spin it like they’re worthy replacements for those who defected. We need to hit the eject button on the CAA ASAP. 
 

Moving up to FBS is not a realistic option….leaving us with few appealing FCS options. Pioneer League? No thanks? Missouri Valley? They wouldn’t have us and would make no geographical sense. NEC? Would be an obvious downgrade. 
 

We must explore ways to gain entry into SoCon for football. I see no other reasonable or semi-appealing paths forward for football. 

I’m mostly bummed because TU leadership has been largely reactionary, passive and unimaginative in the modern collegiate sports landscape. Rather than taking the bull by the horns and actively shop our program around for a better opportunity our President, AD, admin, etc. seemingly sit on their hands and wait for things to happen around them. While making a move to SoCon might not be the sexiest play to make, it might be the only play left to make and I happen to think it would be a significantly better group of (football) schools to be associated with than the patchwork remnants of the CAA. Who knows if that’s even an option but if I were Steve I’d be on a plane to wherever their league offices are and be groveling for entry into SoCon. 

If football is sincerely a long term priority for TU, maybe we should consider a way to get into SoCon. They currently have 9 programs for football….we could make it a nice even 10. Some decent teams with some degree of history and pedigree. The southern footprint is good for recruiting and there’s generally more support and interest for college football in these states. 

Is this breaking news or has this been in the works for a while? 

19 hours ago, TuTigers2012 said:

Tough day for the board to be down. Tiger football players galore in the portal and then Charleston and uncw collecting more players in the hoops portal 

Is there a list somewhere of which football Tigers are in the portal?

Here’s a fun hypothetical NFL draft exercise from CBS Sports that only allows for non-FBS players to be drafted in the first round. Has Carter going to the Colts.

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/draft/news/2025-nfl-small-college-mock-draft-what-round-1-might-look-like-if-teams-could-only-select-non-fbs-players/

30 minutes ago, Tgr4life said:

We have been optimistic for the past 10 years at least. I know they were the two best players on the team last year, but what did the team do.....WHEN IT COUNTED? 

Just think...if the team does not make it into the NCAA next year, we would have found a new way to get to the sweet sixteen.......16 years with the same coach and never getting into the conference championship game much less the Big Dance. Not optimistic....not pessimistic....just realistic

100% true.

We're only a month removed from yet another gut-wrenching CAA tournament collapse.  In the immediate aftermath, virtually everyone on here was in agreement that Pat Skerry will NEVER get us to the Big Dance......never.  And yet, here we are, 30 days later and some of us are speculating on next season's starting lineups, projected minutes, portal signings, NIL deals, etc. as if ANY OF IT MATTERS as long as Pat Skerry is at the helm.

How quickly we forget and how quickly we delude ourselves in the name of fandom.    

First, I want to give a shout-out to St. Francis on making the Big Dance for the first time since......wait for it.......wait for it......1991. Good for them for defying the odds and making it despite $0 NIL.

Second, fully understanding that we won't have a new leader on the sidelines anytime soon I do want to propose, or should I say, repropose, a suggestion I made this time last year.  In absolute seriousness, I believe our men's basketball team and Pat Skerry could greatly benefit from having regular access to a sports psychologist.  Yes, there's a physical element as to why we crumble in early March but how can we NOT agree that Pat and his team completely wilt in big games.....that's an issue between the ears that needs to be dealt with.  Poor Pat has got to be shell-shocked and haunted by his March letdowns.  Those demons need to be fully exercised if he's going to take another run at this thing next year. 

There's got to be a credentialed and impactful sports psychologist somewhere in the greater Baltimore-metro who could work with the team on dealing with the pressure of lofty expectations and rising to the occasion in BIG games and critical moments.  

Go Tigers.

46 minutes ago, Bay Area Tiger said:

I'm guessing "Brentwood" is the same person as TTiger2024.  Evidently, all Towson fans are to be indebted to Pat Skerry, in perpetuity, for having cleaned up the mess of his predecessors and are to NEVER expect or desire more from him than what he has already delivered year after year.  We're all just a bunch of knuckle-dragging, ingrates.  How dare we want to go to the NCAA Tournament.  Give that man another extension!!     

Insult to injury, Delaware dude’s nasty dunk was SportCenter’s #1 top play this morning. Will the pain & embarrassment never end?

And the nightmare continues. 
 

Skerry does juuuust enough during the regular season to get some otherwise reasonable & rational people thinking that he’s some kind of coaching gem. Twelve-game in-conference winning streak….Historic number of conference wins in a season….COTY winner…..it’s all meaningless.  However, it makes it very difficult for an AD to can a coach after that type of season. So, the saga will continue again in the 2025-2026 season.  
 

Can’t wait to see the preseason prognosticators discuss the new talent coming in via freshmen, transfers, second year guys, etc. Debates about who should be starting, who should be the 6th-man, yada, yada. None of it matters. Auburn’s starting 5 could transfer to Towson tomorrow and Pat Skerry wouldn’t have a clue what to do with them. It makes ZERO DIFFERENCE who suits up for Towson as long as Skerry is the coach, we will NEVER make it to the NCAA Tournament.

Wanna hang a banner in the arena for 20 win seasons? Pat’s your guy. Wanna beat Arcadia University and Penn State-Wilkes Barre by 49 points? Pat’s got that covered. Want to get to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 30+ years? How DARE YOU have that unreasonable expectation of Pat Skerry in his 14th season!! 
 

This program is in desperate need of a complete reboot. I don’t care if we have to endure a few 10 win seasons under new leadership, I just want to see a new face on the sidelines. Ten wins or 20 wins, if you don’t make it to the Big Dance it’s the all the same in a conference like CAA. 
 

Don’t know if anyone else stayed tuned in to the CBS Sports postgame show but Jon Rothstein gave an absolutely spot-on summary of Towson’s historic failures in the CAA Tourney, going as far back as 2014….stopped just short of calling them “chokers”.

Winter will soon turn to spring, spring to summer, summer to fall and before long many Towson fans will start convincing themselves that year 15 of the Pat Skerry era will be the year he gets it done. It won’t be. It will be more of the same post-season ineptitude and heartbreak. 

Woke up this morning absolutely craving a big, heaping plate of crow served up by non other than Pat Skerry.

Prove me wrong, Patrick! Please prove that, in YEAR FOURTEEN, you have what it takes as a coach to get us to the big dance. 
 

It starts today.

3 hours ago, TuTigers2012 said:

Ok we all know baseball is bad and not funded like the other sports on campus…but how the hell do we not have lights in 2025!? Multiple practice fields, a hand full of weight rooms but no lights?!

 

 

Weren’t we also the last NCAA D1 basketball program to switch from a rubber/synthetic court to an actual wood floor in like 1996? 
 

We like holding out as long as we can before we absolutely must upgrade the facilities. Maybe the field will get lights with the windfall of money our athletic program will get from our men’s hoops team making the big dance this season. 😉

I’m assuming Towson will host a few scouts in the next couple of weeks for Carter and others to workout in front of? 

I guess some of you missed the part where I said the streak is exciting and worthy of praise.

However, I’m not going to be another giddy fan who is appeased by a late season run.  What has this team accomplished that some other prior Skerry team hasn’t already accomplished??

Year after year after year after year…..Pat Skerry teams get their precious 20 wins and then crap the bed in the tournament and many of you look around slack-jawed as though it’s some stunning development. 
 

Feel free to book your flights and hotels for the first round of the big dance….I’ll wait and believe it when I see it.

Go Tigers!

4 hours ago, Bay Area Tiger said:

When things are going good right..  

7-17 from 3 early on.   What a ride we are on right now 👏

All of us saying to ourselves..  “are we peaking too early?!  What if we win out the rest of the league… we should drop one game!?  
 

In this team and coaches we trust.   Keep it rolling..  our fan base deserves this success 😉

 

“In this team and coaches WE trust…”

Please speak for yourself.  I won’t knock the players but there is ZERO reason to believe in this coach come tournament time.  History is not on his side.  I pray he proves me wrong. 

This run we’re on is exciting and worthy of praise but what will any of it mean in the grand scheme if Towson doesn’t make it to the NCAA tournament??

Fresh off the presses, here is Jerry Palm's updated Bracketology projection (1/31) with none other than our Tigers pegged as a 14 seed and taking on the Texas A&M Aggies.  

I fully understand this updated and revised virtually every day by Jerry pending game results and changes in conference standings and that it just happens to be our turn as the designated CAA placeholder-bid.......but I think most of know how this season is going to end.

2025 NCAA Tournament Bracket Predictions - Bracketology - College Basketball - CBSSports.com

Looks like Carter turned some heads during Hula Bowl practice. Thinking there’s a strong chance he finds himself in an NFL training camp this summer.

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/2025-hula-bowl-takeaways-highlighting-the-biggest-standouts-from-college-all-star-showcase/amp/

There's just something different about the kids at these upper midwest & "fly-over state" programs.  The Dakotas, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, etc.....I know it's a stereotype but I can't help but think that a lot of these kids have been bailing hay on their family farms since they were 6 years old and have developed a work-ethic and discipline that a lot of east coast, big-city kids don't have. They play with a selflessness.....very little, if any "look at me" showmanship....just hard-nosed, disciplined football.

NDSU has built a machine.  You either buy into the philosophy and approach of the machine or you can't play for them.  

3 minutes ago, mat1992 said:

I guess I was wrong about FBS.  Not sure about this hire

https://towsontigers.com/news/2025/1/6/towson-football-adds-neugebauer-phelps-to-coaching-staff.aspx

I’m very intrigued by the Neugebauer hire if only for his ties to Slippery Rock. As I’ve mentioned a few times in the past the HC at SRU, Shawn Lutz, has an unbelievable coaching record (still can’t understand why he hasn’t moved up to a bigger program) so anyone who comes from his “tree” is a welcomed addition, in my opinion. 

The Phelps hire is less inspiring. Seems like Pete is just going with a familiar/easy/cheap option. 

4 hours ago, mat1992 said:

https://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=546065&vislive=tows

https://towsontigers.com/news/2025/1/4/mens-basketball-towson-mens-basketball-falls-to-college-of-charleston.aspx

Charleston shot 24 of 26 from the line and Towson committed 17 fouls in the second half as the Cougars improved to 2-0 with a 77-69 win over the Tigers on Saturday afternoon from TD Arena. AJ Smith and Deywil Tavarez led the Cougars with 20 points apiece. Towson was led by Tyler Tejada, who had 22 points on 9-of-18 shooting, while Tomiwa Sulaiman added 15 points off the bench.

The Tigers had plenty of opportunities to cut into a double-digit deficit in the second half, but offensive fouls by Nendah Tarke and Mekhi Lowery were detrimental to the cause. The three-point shooting woes continue as the Tigers shot 8-of-23 (34%), but had three treys down the stretch from Tejada and Sulaiman when the Tigers were attempting to come back. But they couldn't get over the hump all day and making just 3-of-9 from the line didn't help. Dylan Williamson continued his slump as he shot just 3-of-15 from the field and 0-5 from the three-point line. He's now 5-of-32 in his last two games from the field and 2-of-14 from beyond the arc.

Here are some quotes after the game (BTW, Free throw discrepancy was bad with 17 second half fouls but Towson had 3-4 terrible fouls away from the ball and the two offensive fouls).

"The free throw discrepancy jumps off the page. We got beat at the free throw line. It's like playing a guaranteed game. I liked our fight. Defense tightened up in the 2nd half. Saturday in the CAA. Saturday in the CAA. We pride ourselves on great sportmanship in the league. Hopefully, we get another crack at them. Didn't guard threes early. We have to shoot the ball better at some point. We have room to get better. Ball movement good and bad."

 
"We couldn't get over the hump. Dylan has to get better.A lot of good looks. Has to get back in the gym. Christian is playing a little better. Showing some flashes. Mekhi had a great day. Tomiwa was good. Nendah has to get going. Our centers did well. They made their foul shots. Didn't get there much and didn't do well from there. Pat O'Connell did well with the prep. Quick turnaround. Not enough juice. We will regroup. Play a good NE team to get to 2-1."

“We couldn’t get over the hump….”

A perfectly concise summary of Skerry’s time at Towson. 

Maybe the best free marketing Towson has ever received. #TUpenant #TowsonLogo
 

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