BOSTON – There’s no way to sugar-coat it: Towson is having a season to forget. It’s okay to put it that way; new head coach Pat Skerry is probably feeling the same way, while working to build something better. And while the bottom line isn’t the first place Skerry is looking, Tuesday night’s 70-51 loss at Northeastern was not a good one for the Tigers.
“We took a step backwards today based on how we’ve been playing,” said Skerry. “I think our lack of ability and our lack of being able to concentrate on the road showed.”
If ever there was a team and a season to enter with no expectations, this Towson team is just that. The Tigers return just one letterwinner from last season’s team, sophomore Erique Gumbs, although it’s worth noting that they do have senior Robert Nwankwo back after he redshirted last season due to academics. That doesn’t change the reality that this team is very low on experience, especially playing together, and a new coach brings about additional challenges.
The numbers aren’t pretty all over. The Tigers turn the ball over 19 times a game, have no one shooting better than 33 percent from long range, are shooting just 36 percent from the field on the season and allow opponents to shoot nearly 45 percent. Their 1-27 record, in other words, is no accident. And there’s a clear way to play this team given their guard depth: press them into submission.
“Anyone that doesn’t full-court press us, based on our assist-to-turnover ratio, must have VCRs that aren’t working right now,” said Skerry, noting that he expects his team to face that every game.
One area where Towson has done well is rebounding, especially of late. In out-rebounding Northeastern 30-29 on Tuesday, Towson came out on top on the glass for the ninth time in ten games. On the season, they are out-rebounding teams, although not by a large margin and certainly not a large enough margin to make up for the turnover deficit (the Tigers force just over 11 turnovers a game).
The Tigers have out-rebounded several teams whose reputations on the glass precede them. They out-rebounded Kansas, as well as CAA powerhouses George Mason, Old Dominion, VCU and even Drexel. The Dragons had out-rebounded 17 straight opponents prior to Towson beating them on the glass.
While that’s not helping much now, if the younger Tigers keep that up and Skerry gets future teams to buy into the importance of rebounding, that will be a start toward winning games.
“I think our guys’ effort is pretty good,” said Skerry. “For us, we really need to be plus-eight to ten on most nights. We have rebounded pretty well for most of the year.”
Skerry figured the Huskies were going to give the Tigers their best shot. He knew they were coming off a bad loss at William & Mary, which was their fourth in a row. Now back home and taking on a team they should beat, the feeling was that the Huskies were going to come out like a team on a mission. They didn’t do that right away, and Towson had enough fight in them to be within single digits early in the second half. But eventually they won out and pulled away from the Tigers.
Towson has now lost more games than they did last season, with three to go. The thinking was that a season like this wouldn’t be a shocker, given the lack of proven talent on the roster. The future should be brighter right away, as the Tigers have signed some players who should play right away and help them in short order. Sometimes a program has further to fall before they move up, and that appears to be the case here.
