General Basketball Thread for 2024-25

[Blounge]

35 minutes ago, AtlantaTiger said:

I will say this about Pat Skerry; recruiting solid talent at a school like Towson must be extremely difficult.  Think about today's high school & college athletes and what they prioritize when choosing a school to play at.  I would imagine the following factors are considered in some order.

1. How much NIL money can I make?

2. Will I have a chance to get some NBA/pro consideration?

3. Will I have a realistic chance to play in an NCAA Tournament?

4. Will we be a winning/competitive program?

5. What's the fan/gameday environment like....will I be playing in front of a packed house or an empty arena most nights?

6. Will my overall game improve and develop by playing for this coach & staff?

7. Graduation rate/quality of academics/quality of academic resources & support for athletes

8. Are our games on TV?

In the absence of any meaningful NIL budget, our decades long NCAA Tourney drought, our spotty fan support, hardly any history of our players even sniffing the NBA and the CAA's dreadful media deal(s), there's not much for Skerry to pitch to prospects.

Yes, we win a lot of regular season games. Yes, Pat graduates his players.

However, it's the player development piece that I think is most telling about Pat.  If you're never going to land legitimate game-wreckers and alpha dogs, and mostly be working with guys who had few, if any, better choices than Towson, you had better be the type of coach that knows how to really develop a player and maximize what talent(s) they might have.  That's just not Pat's strength unfortunately.

I don't know that Pat is considered to be a fierce motivator, technical savant, top-tier strategist, etc.  He's a really nice guy who loves his players and loves the game pf basketball. As an outside observer it seems as if the players view him as everybody's favorite uncle.  

I’ve wondered this too, the attractiveness of the towson girls and student demographic being split 70/30 girl to guy is probably the top selling point. 

[TuTigers2012]

55 minutes ago, AtlantaTiger said:

I will say this about Pat Skerry; recruiting solid talent at a school like Towson must be extremely difficult.  Think about today's high school & college athletes and what they prioritize when choosing a school to play at.  I would imagine the following factors are considered in some order.

1. How much NIL money can I make?

2. Will I have a chance to get some NBA/pro consideration?

3. Will I have a realistic chance to play in an NCAA Tournament?

4. Will we be a winning/competitive program?

5. What's the fan/gameday environment like....will I be playing in front of a packed house or an empty arena most nights?

6. Will my overall game improve and develop by playing for this coach & staff?

7. Graduation rate/quality of academics/quality of academic resources & support for athletes

8. Are our games on TV?

In the absence of any meaningful NIL budget, our decades long NCAA Tourney drought, our spotty fan support, hardly any history of our players even sniffing the NBA and the CAA's dreadful media deal(s), there's not much for Skerry to pitch to prospects.

Yes, we win a lot of regular season games. Yes, Pat graduates his players.

However, it's the player development piece that I think is most telling about Pat.  If you're never going to land legitimate game-wreckers and alpha dogs, and mostly be working with guys who had few, if any, better choices than Towson, you had better be the type of coach that knows how to really develop a player and maximize what talent(s) they might have.  That's just not Pat's strength unfortunately.

I don't know that Pat is considered to be a fierce motivator, technical savant, top-tier strategist, etc.  He's a really nice guy who loves his players and loves the game pf basketball. As an outside observer it seems as if the players view him as everybody's favorite uncle.  

Fair points, but besides UNCW and Charleston, what can the other schools in our league offer?

 

[AtlantaTiger]

33 minutes ago, TuTigers2012 said:

Fair points, but besides UNCW and Charleston, what can the other schools in our league offer?

 

Maybe they can offer coaches who are better at developing talent. 

I find it very telling that overall his years at Towson and all his coveted 20-win seasons, no other program (that we know of) has ever taken a serious run at hiring him away from Towson. When other jobs come open are no ADs looking at Pat as a prolific program-builder, player-developer......big-game winner?  Other schools seem content to look elsewhere for their next head basketball coach.....Pat Skerry need not apply.

[TuTigers2012]

1 hour ago, Blounge said:

I’ve wondered this too, the attractiveness of the towson girls and student demographic being split 70/30 girl to guy is probably the top selling point. 

To be fair most colleges have around that split now a days 

[TuTigers2012]

16 minutes ago, AtlantaTiger said:

Maybe they can offer coaches who are better at developing talent. 

I find it very telling that overall his years at Towson and all his coveted 20-win seasons, no other program (that we know of) has ever taken a serious run at hiring him away from Towson. When other jobs come open are no ADs looking at Pat as a prolific program-builder, player-developer......big-game winner?  Other schools seem content to look elsewhere for their next head basketball coach.....Pat Skerry need not apply.

Well duh. They are smarter than that! also would assume (probably shouldn’t) there’s a buy out. And he’s under contract for like 24 more years, it would Be costly 😂 

[Blounge]

https://x.com/towsonhorse/status/1856789674997518371?s=46&t=_ArGClX3XZ7EdROrGIJtmw
 

right on queue, playing in front of a big crowd being a determining factor in recruits.

tiger arena has sold out zero times in 10 years. That’s a bad stat for a $65 million dollar arena

[TTiger2024]

The sky is falling crowd out in FULL FORCE ! 😂. Did anyone have them at 3- 0 ? (  Like … did anyone REALLY think we were gonna win AT St Marys (11pt dawg) and/or AT S Carolina (8pt dawg)  NEWS FLASH; we ain’t da SEC.  Dats big 💰 🏀!   ain’t these like “paid games”; where the smaller schools get money to play (play…. Sacrificial 🐑?).  
St Ms looked good, SC looked bad …… let’s not throw ourselves off the mountain before league play starts 🤦‍♂️ 

deep breath folks - gonna be a good year, try not too melt down too early ……

[TuTigers2012]

16 minutes ago, TTiger2024 said:

The sky is falling crowd out in FULL FORCE ! 😂. Did anyone have them at 3- 0 ? (  Like … did anyone REALLY think we were gonna win AT St Marys (11pt dawg) and/or AT S Carolina (8pt dawg)  NEWS FLASH; we ain’t da SEC.  Dats big 💰 🏀!   ain’t these like “paid games”; where the smaller schools get money to play (play…. Sacrificial 🐑?).  
St Ms looked good, SC looked bad …… let’s not throw ourselves off the mountain before league play starts 🤦‍♂️ 

deep breath folks - gonna be a good year, try not too melt down too early ……

Elon UNC

A&M Corpus Christi   Purdue

North Florida   South Carolina

Central Connecticut State  Providence

Lemoyne  Syracuse

Texas Southern  Xavier

Tennessee Tech  Georgia

The Citadel  BC

Portland State  Washington State

9 games from the opening night that were closer and more competitive than we have been. Tell me those smaller teams have more pieces returning, more continuity and a longer tenured coach, than Towson.

4 teams at Da Bottom of da weak CAA, Elon, Campbell, NC A&T, and Hampton, all were WAY more competitive against their power 5 teams than we were.

[Bay Area Tiger]

22 minutes ago, TTiger2024 said:

The sky is falling crowd out in FULL FORCE ! 😂. Did anyone have them at 3- 0 ? (  Like … did anyone REALLY think we were gonna win AT St Marys (11pt dawg) and/or AT S Carolina (8pt dawg)  NEWS FLASH; we ain’t da SEC.  Dats big 💰 🏀!   ain’t these like “paid games”; where the smaller schools get money to play (play…. Sacrificial 🐑?).  
St Ms looked good, SC looked bad …… let’s not throw ourselves off the mountain before league play starts 🤦‍♂️ 

deep breath folks - gonna be a good year, try not too melt down too early ……

I’m Mr Optimistic and I hope you are right however we are so thin in the front court.  Samb I hope contributes Friday.  
We miss CT a ton.  
Our perimeter players have to be shooting lights out if we are gonna beat any upper echelon teams in the CAA.  
A decade ago and we could say “no sweat if we lose to a bigger program” but with the portal now we have to be more competitive with a SEC bottom feeder school that committed more turnovers than us yesterday.  
We are all frustrated and expecting much more from this group.  Again time will tell.  

[TuTigers2012]

3 minutes ago, Bay Area Tiger said:

I’m Mr Optimistic and I hope you are right however we are so thin in the front court.  Samb I hope contributes Friday.  
We miss CT a ton.  
Our perimeter players have to be shooting lights out if we are gonna beat any upper echelon teams in the CAA.  
A decade ago and we could say “no sweat if we lose to a bigger program” but with the portal now we have to be more competitive with a SEC bottom feeder school that committed more turnovers than us yesterday.  
We are all frustrated and expecting much more from this group.  Again time will tell.  

They had time to replace Charles or at least adjust the strategy.  Yes, he set screens, rebounded, defended and was the leader, but we aren't replacing at 20 and 10 guy...

It isn't that we lost, I for one would have preferred the other type of Skerry special loss, where we were up semi-latish and then totally collapse, then getting our brains beat in by 25+ to that team.