FEDORA

[Wayne23]

Wayne is ready!

[PointGuard]

Yeah, but for what?

[Wayne23]

That is an entirely different question...

[PointGuard]

Baltimore Sun articles

1ST TEAM ALL-CONFERENCE FOR TOWSON’S SMITH

The Colonial Athletic Association presented its season awards yesterday. Craig Smith, senior PF for Towson University was named 1st Team All-Conference. Tigers’ head coach Frederick Aura said, “We’re really proud of Craig. He did such a great job for us this season that he’s very deserving of this prestigious award. We’re going to definitely miss him next season.”

NCAA CRACKS DOWN ON 3 PROGRAMS

The NCAA has announced that 3 basketball programs have been put on probation for recruiting violations. Richmond received a one-year loss of scholarships for minor recruiting violations involving two recruits. Richmond’s head coach Antonio Jenkins was found to have been involved and his firing is expected. The same punishment has been given to Tennessee Tech for minor recruiting violations. Their head coach, John Bedard is likely to lose his job. Adam Giles, the head coach of Missouri, was found to have been involved in providing bribes to two recruits. Missouri’s athletic department has announced a press conference for tomorrow. Sources at the university have confirmed that Giles will be fired. The NCAA announced that Missouri will be penalized by losing scholarships for 2 years and be banned from post-season play for a year.

[PointGuard]

Janeka Aura

Several colleges have shown interest in having Frederick serve as their head coach, including Southern Illinois, Missouri State, and South Florida. But Frederick wants to continue his work at developing the Tigers here in Towson. I’m really happy about that since I have no desire to move our family again.

Perry Winkle, Athletic Director

Got together with Coach Aura today to go over his performance. While he didn’t meet my goal to finish in the Top 3 in the conference, his team exceeded the goal of games won during the season. I expressed my support for what he did and my confidence in where he’s taking the team. I told him I’d like to see the team with the conference tournament this coming season.

He’s keeping his staff together which I think is a sound decision. The continuity will be good for the program.

He asked for a budget increase. But there’s just no way we can do that, particularly with the reduction in attendance due to required social distancing and the added testing and cleaning and the uncertainties that this Covid-19 outbreak continues to impose on us. We’ve cut back whatever we possibly can just to get through this period. Frederick was understanding but jokingly (I hope) said he’d just ask for double after this next season. I replied, “Win us a national championship and we’ll discuss it.”

[PointGuard]

Omar McDade

As we head into summer, we reviewed our upcoming team. We had just gotten word that our incoming recruit class was rated as the 118th best in Division I. Good but not impressive.

The consensus amongst we coaches was that overall our team would be a little stronger this coming season. Our depth is likely to be a little better than last season. We’re relatively strong at all positions with the exception of SF. But Eric Shannon, who while a natural SG filled in nicely at SF last season, has really worked hard in the weight room and his new strength should improve his rebounding. And it’s possible that the two SF recruits coming in could provide some depth that we lacked last season. Steele and McPherson continue to develop well so we should be solid at C. Jason Minor may be able to fill the PF spot that Craig Smith anchored last season. Our two new point guards should be able to handle that position along with Billy Thomas whose MCL should be healed by December. Taylor and Thomas will be able to handle SG for us.

We’re making sure all of our players get some good training this summer and we’ve told Matt Heard to stay the hell out of China this summer. When we’ve gone through our fall training in October, we’ll have a better idea of which players are most ready to carry the load.

We also discussed this season’s recruiting. Given we have but two seniors (Eric Shannon and Nick McPherson) we’ll only have two scholarships to offer. Our recruiting budget remains as meager as last season, But since we have just two scholarships to fill we are going to not only purchase the basic Atlantic East Regional report but also the basic National Report and attend both the Big Apple Showcase Camp and one of the National Camps. That will definitely limit the number of recruits we focus upon. Coach Aura wants to try to get a highly rated recruit. I’m unconvinced that this will work, but against my better judgement I’m going along with it to see if we can pull it off. We’re going to hone in on getting on big man (preferably a C) and one SF. By not also looking closely at guards, that will help limit what we spend.

[PointGuard]

Michael Snoddy, 2nd Assistant Coach in charge of Player Development:

I tried to convince Coach Aura to cut SF Ross Davis. We redshirted him last season so he’s still a freshman as far as eligibility goes. I’d hope to see a big improvement in his skills, but don’t feel that occurred.

Coach A said, "Davis has a lot of potential.”

I had to agree, but replied, “But if he’s not going to develop that potential, he’s not going to provide us with any value. Also at just 6’5” he’s not as big as I’d like to see for a SF.”

Coach A hates cutting players. I argued, “if we cut him we’d be able to go after a talented transfer player. While a transfer player doesn’t provide us with an asset for this season, I don’t think Ross will give us much of anything this season either. And you know as well as me that ‘potential’ is a crap shoot, so we may never get a lot from him.”

I added, “There’s a high-scoring SG who played for UC Irvine and scored 16.8 ppg as a freshman. There are several other very good transfers, although those players think they will be picked up by major programs whereas the UC Irvine guard is looking at lesser programs so I think we have a good shot at getting him.”

Coach A seemed to be wavering but then declared, “Michael, thanks for raising the possibility. But I just don’t want to cut Ross. I like his shooting eye. While he has a ways to go on the rest of his game, I want to see how he develops. Since he was a redshirt, we haven’t been able to watch him in game action yet.”

So no transfer players. I kept track of where transfer players were going and the two I was most interested selected Oregon and Ohio State. So we probably wouldn’t have been able to get them anyway.

[Wayne23]

When in doubt cut. I do it regularly when the red shirt year doesn't help. The hit to TP is worth it. Of course it depends upon the coach's overall personality and approach. I justify it by saying the guy was able to get either an academic scholarship or a hardship scholarship so he didn't lose his opportunity to get an education.

[PointGuard]

When in doubt cut. I do it regularly when the red shirt year doesn't help. The hit to TP is worth it. Of course it depends upon the coach's overall personality and approach. I justify it by saying the guy was able to get either an academic scholarship or a hardship scholarship so he didn't lose his opportunity to get an education.

I don't cut a player very often but will so so on occasion. And it was tempting to go after a transfer player even though he'd sit out a year. In this case, Ross Davis is perplexing. He has the potential but he still hasn't developed the way I had hoped. While he might be a bust he also may be a pretty decent player (albeit an unlikely star) and help us. I'm hoping he surprises me this season as a good guy coming in off the bench. We'll see.

[PointGuard]

Janeka Aura

Excuse my French...but...Damn it! Another nurse, who I interacted with a lot at the hospital, tested positive for Covid-19. I got tested and it came back negative, but because the test has a lot of false positives, I am self-quarantining at home for 14 days. That means I am staying in our master bathroom (with a master bathroom) and have kicked Frederick out and am keeping him and our children away from me for 14 days. I’m just in my 3rd day and am absolutely hating it! Reading, watching TV, doing crafts, doing a puzzle, etc, etc. But all those get old when you can’t do whatever you want. And listening to my kids through a closed door but not being able to hold and hug them is breaking my heart. While I’m pretty sure I haven’t been infected, I just can’t chance exposing my family or the others I work with at the hospital or the patients I would be helping. I’m not sure how the other nurse came down with Covid, but think she was not being careful during her socializing. She’s had some tough days but fortunately isn’t so bad that she needs to be hospitalized.