RICHMOND, Va. – You could hear the whispers everywhere, even as far away as Cleveland. About Coach Pat Kennedy. He’s in his 29th season as a Division I head coach, his second without prolific scorer Gary Neal. Iona, Florida State, DePaul and Montana came before Towson, Sam Cassell at FSU long before Neal. An improved season last year without Neal, with point guard C.C. Williams running the show, but the Tigers couldn’t find a way to win away from home last year. Superb performances by Josh Thornton and Tony Durant in an upset win over Hofstra to begin last year’s CAA Tourney in Richmond, and then a strong losing effort, especially defensively, against No. 1 seed VCU. There’s money to be spent on the gym and the program despite virtually no tradition, and precious few butts in the seats at Towson Center.
Kennedy knew he needed to take another step forward this season, his fifth at Towson, to get his team to win some games on the road despite the departure of Williams, the league’s leader is assist to turnover ratio. So Kennedy rolled the dice with transfers two years ago, 6-6 point guard Brian Morris and forward David Brewster from Richmond, and Jarrel and Jimmy Smith from Colorado State all becoming eligible this year, joining a team already crowded with junior college and D-I transfers.
The roll came up snake eyes. Towson came into the tournament 5-13 in conference play, 11-21 overall, and 5-13 on games played away from the Towson Center. So the whispers were – and still are – that a coaching change is coming.
Then the Tigers did what they’d done last year, grabbing an upset win to start the tournament. This year it was over No. 6 Drexel, and rather than just a win, it was an absolute thrashing. Led as always by underrated senior forward Junior Hairston, Towson scored 19 of the first 21 points of the game against the Dragons and their shell-shocked coach Bruiser Flint, led by 25 at 39-14 at the half, and cruised to a 73-62 victory. Hairston finished with 24 on 7-11 shooting, including 2-2 from the arc, and seven rebounds. But still the whispering continued.
Then in last night’s quarter-final game, the Tigers drew No. 3 and 18-11 Northeastern, who led the CAA for 6 weeks in January and February. When they played man, Kennedy often had Hairston on first team all-conference performer and 7th-leading scorer Matt Janning, Hairston, his teammates and an effective zone holding Janning to just 8 points in the game, on 3-13 and 0-4 shooting (and just 2 rebounds). And even though NU junior center Manny Adako (also third team all-league) had a monster game, scoring 23 of NU’s 54 on 10-14 shooting and grabbing seven boards, even though the work of Adako and point guard Chaisson Allen on the boards (Allen had 10 caroms) resulted in an eight-rebound advantage for the Huskies at 34-26, Kennedy’s Tigers kept the game at a manageable pace, stayed on the lead more often than not, and scored 8 of the last 9 points of the first half to go up 7 (32-25). Then in the second half, the Tigers came back from a five-point half-time deficit to go up six on two Morris free throws at 19:24 (56-50), and held on to beat the Huskies 58-54.
In the last half-minute of the game, Allen pulled Northeastern within three with a trey at 19:40, Tiger point guard Troy Franklin (13 points on 5-10 and four assists, and walked around Janning and Allen on his last two handles of the game, once for a goal and once to draw a foul) missed the front end of a 1-and-1, and Hairston foolishly fouled NU’s Baptiste Bataille on a trey, giving the junior guard three free-throws to tie the game with 4.8 seconds remaining. But Bataille missed the first, made the second, purposely missed the third, and when forward Robert Nwankwo rebounded that miss (one of his 6 boards), the game was over. Nwankwo made two free throws at the other end in the final seconds to complete the scoring. Still the whispers.
Kennedy has been there before, having been fired twice (from FSU and DePaul). His chin was up and his attitude positive at the post-game press conference, and nary a word was spoken on the subject. “We’ve gotten back to the way we were playing early in the season, when we beat Navy and UMBC, and were right there with Villanova at halftime. We obviously struggled through the middle of the season, but now we’re showing much more continuity on offense, understanding time and score, executing down the stretch of games, even playing with some of that reckless abandon you need to win. Tonight we controlled tempo, Junior [Hairston] defended Janning well, and I’m starting to see our confidence build.”
While none of us chose to address Kennedy’s job pressure, I did ask why it took so long for his team to gel, and after pointing to early season injuries to David Brewster and Calvin Lee that hurt Towson’s depth, then pointing out the disadvantage of the absence of any winning tradition at Towson, Kennedy stated that “we’re coming together now, admittedly a year later than I would have liked.”
Kennedy gets to coach the Tigers one more day today against George Mason in one CAA semifinal. And if Towson should continue on its late season run and beat Mason, Kennedy will get one more day to coach, in tomorrow night’s final. Nothing else is assured. Here’s to hoping the Tigers continue on their unlikely surge, win the CAA Tournament, and make that decision at Towson as difficult as possible.
