FEDORA

[PointGuard]

Tiger Blog

The Towson Tigers finished their pre-conference schedule with a 7-4 record. Not bad. And they have the 60th best RPI in the nation. That’s good, but seems rather high given that none of their pre-conference opponents were really top-flight teams. Northeastern is the only other Colonial Athletic Association team with as good a record.

Here’s how each CAA team did in pre-conference play:



Individual leaders on the Towson Tigers roster:

Scoring: PF Deon Penn—14.6 ppg, SF Wayne Burrough—10.5 ppg, C Melvin Steele—9.8 ppg, SG Billy Thomas—9.1 ppg, C Jason Minor—8.7 ppg, PG Adrian Brown—7.3 ppg.

Rebounds: PF Deon Penn—7.5 rpg, C Melvin Steele—6.8 rpg, SF Wayne Burrough—6.0 rpg, C Jason Miner—4.3 rpg.

Assists: PG Adrian Brown—3.5 apg, SG Billy Thomas—3.5 apg, PG Mateen Carroll—2.8 apg, SG Ryan Taylor—1.6 apg.

C Melvin Steele has both the most steals (1.2 spg) and blocks (1.5 bpg).

[PointGuard]

Jan. 2, 2022: Drexel Dragons (4-7, 0-0) @ Towson Tigers (7-4, 0-0)

Danielle and Louis Broadmore

Louis: Danni and I don’t get out much now that we have a baby. But she knows I love basketball and so she’s agreed to our coming to some of Towson’s home games. I keep hoping that the Tigers will come on strong, win the CAA championship and get through at least a couple rounds of the NCAA Tournament. OK, that’s been a dream with little chance that it will become reality. While I prefer close games that Towson pulls out at the end, Danni likes games where Towson leads by 10-20 points throughout the entire game. I like Billy Thomas and Melvin Steele and am growing to like Deon Penn. She likes…well, I’ll let her tell you that.

Danielle: Sticks (that’s what I call Louis since I met him when he was the drummer for a rock band; his parents call him Louie, but he doesn’t really like others calling him that) drags me to these games fairly often. Actually it’s not that I don’t like coming to the games. I do. But it means having to get a baby sitter and I don’t like leaving little Emma with a baby sitter. It’s good for us to get out occasionally though. Sticks says I’m supposed to tell you who I like. On the team I like Wayne Burrough the most, but my real favorites at these games are the cheer squad, the dance team, and of course, Doc the Tiger. I don’t keep track of statistics or even how various players are doing or the opponents, so I’ll leave any of that up to Sticks.

Louis: When a game gets down to the final 4 minutes on the clock, Danielle always begins gathering everything up and moves to the edge of her seat since she always feels like we will be able to get out of here in 4 minutes and get back to Emma. Of course, she forgets that the final minutes of a basketball game are consumed by a bunch of time outs that make the 4 minutes take about 4 times as long to play out.
This game should be a slam dunk for the Tigers tonight. Drexel hasn’t played very well thus far. They’ve only won 1 of their 7 away games. They gave up over 90 points in each of their last two games. Their offense has been extremely inconsistent. The past two years they’ve won just 11 and 12 games each season, and I don’t think they are any stronger this season. They have two players averaging in double figures: SG Kareem Bickerstaff at 12.0 ppg and SF Shawn King at 11.7 ppg. I think the Tigers’ interior players are a lot stronger and should dominate. I’m guessing this will be a game Danni will like.

Game comments:

Louis: The Dragons hit a couple nice buckets but otherwise the Tigers defense looks good forcing 5 turnovers enroute to a 12-5 opening lead. And Steele scored 6 of those points.

Danielle: Doc the Tiger is so funny. I love watching him cavort and also how he plays with the fans. Now this is a game! 23-11 midway through the half. Sticks…your man Melvin Steele is hot tonight. 9 points already.

Louis: Damn! The Tigers must have felt they had this in the bag. Now they can’t hit a shot and Drexel’s scored 15 unanswered points to lead 26-23 with 6 minutes to go.

Danielle: What’s wrong with Towson? They’re on their own court and don’t seem comfortable at all. Missing shots from everywhere on the court. I’m getting real nervous.

Louis: This isn’t good. We’re trailing 34-32 at the end of the half. And we only hit 32% of our shots. If it weren’t for our 11-2 turnover advantage, we’d be buried. PF Deon Penn shot horribly but put up a lot of shots so he was able to score 13 points. And C Melvin Steele has 9 points. But all the perimeter players have been nearly invisible. And Drexel is controlling the boards. What the hell? Coach Aura better get his guys turned around.

Danielle: Great performance by the dance team during the halftime intermission!

Louis: The Dragons really started out with a slew of turnovers. Unfortunately, the Tigers still aren’t shooting well. Ugly game. We trail 42-37 with 14 minutes to go.

Danielle: Kill the refs! They’re calling too many fouls on the Tigers! We’re still behind by 49-46 with just 10 minutes left.

Louis: Drexel is killing us with their 3’s. We keep getting within 1 or 2 points but the Dragons come right back and knock down a 3. Man, this is killing me. Towson trails 68-65 with 2 minutes to go. Drexel has hit 11 of 25 from 3-point land and the Tigers have hit just 3 of 17 from beyond the arc.

Danielle: What a bummer! The Tigers’ shooting was just horrible and they finally had to foul intentionally and ended up losing 72-65. We should have stayed home with Emma…wouldn’t have had to get a baby sitter.

Louis: Drexel outshot Towson 48% to 34% and from 3 point distance 42% to 16%. And the Tigers were out-rebounded 42-29. They played lousy tonight. PF Deon Penn scored 20, C Melvin Steele had 16 and PF Jason Vickers added 9. Otherwise no other Towson players scored more than 5 points. The four guards hit 3 of 17 of their FG attempts. Kind of makes me not want to go to any more games. If they don’t start playing better, this is going to be a long season. Towson’s the only CAA team to lose on their home court tonight.

[Wayne23]

"Get some rope.
Find a tree.
Let's go hang
The referee!"

[PointGuard]

Jan. 5, 2022: Towson Tigers (7-5, 0-1) @ Hofstra Pride (4-8, 0-1)

Michael Snoddy, 2nd Assistant (Practice) Coach

Coach Aura and I worked the hell out of the team after the embarrassing loss earlier this week. The guys needed a swift kick in the butt. I hope it makes a difference tonight. Our guards aren’t as bad as they played in the last game, but they really need to step up the level of their effort and their focus. Our big guys aren’t going to be able to carry the entire load.

The Pride have a 5-game losing streak. We need to make sure they continue that tonight.

PF Deon Penn again picked up 2 quick fouls. This is becoming a problem for him. SG Billy Thomas hit a nice jumper and then a beautiful 3 to give us a 7-5 lead which was a good sign that maybe our outside shooting would be OK. Thomas continued to play well but the rest of the team wasn’t shooting well. That together with a bunch of turnovers caused us to gradually slip behind Hofstra. We finished the half trailing 40-33. 12 turnovers by us to just 5 by the Pride. Hofstra also was sent to the line 11 more times where they scored 7 more points than did we. SG Billy Thomas 6 of 8 FG’s including 3 of 5 threes and afscored 19 points in the half. We need to get the rest of the team supporting him in the 2nd half.

The turnover bug continued to bite us in the 2nd half. We narrowed the gap early in the 2nd half, but then slowly slipped into oblivion and completely fell apart late in the game to sustain an 85-67 drubbing at the hands of Hofstra. Another lackluster performance. 24 turnovers!

SG Billy Thomas was our only player to score in double figures. He finished with 22 points.

[PointGuard]

Jan. 9, 2022: Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens (0-13, 0-2) @ Towson Tigers (7-6, 0-2)

Omar McDade, 1st Assistant Coach

Not much “fight” to these Blue Hens so far this season. Time to dig out way out of the basement in the conference and start clawing our way back up the pack. We’re starting Mateen Carroll at PG in place of Adrian Brown. Adrian hasn’t been on the top of his game the past 5 games. Mateen has been playing a little better and is hitting a much higher percentage of his FG attempts and also dishing out assists at a slightly higher rate. Additionally, Jason Vickers will start at SF in place of Burrough. Wayne’s last 4 games have been relatively weak Jason has been primarily subbing at PF, but can handle the 3 position as well. We considered making some other switches in the starting lineup to try to shake up the team, but during our “practices from hell” the past few days, our guys seemed to get the message. We’ll see if they can play with a renewed enthusiasm tonight.

Delaware hit 3 quick shots to go up 7-0 in the first 70 seconds of the game. We fell behind by 13 after 6 minutes of play before scoring 7 unanswered points in the next minute to get back into the game. We got within 3 a couple times but ended the half trailing 37-29. We’re still not aggressive enough. PF Deon Penn scored 10 to lead us offensively. But we let Delaware knock down 50% of their shots. Defense has to buckle down.

We scored the first 6 points in the 2nd half to pull with a single point and then with 15:56 left Wayne Burrough drilled a 3 that put us ahead 41-39 for our first lead of the game. We expanded our lead to 8 in the next couple of minutes but then our offense stalled. But our defense was rock solid. SF Ross Davis and PG Mateen Carroll hit back-to-back 3’s to put us up 55-42 with 9-1/2 minutes left. PG Adrian Brown hit a 3 with 6:40 to go to put us ahead by 20 at 64-44. We went on to record a decisive 77-60 victory. Great 2nd half in which we outscored the FIghtin’ Blue Hens 48-23. We hit 13 of 24 of our 3-point attempts.

PF Deon Penn scored 24, PG Adrian Brown came on strong in the 2nd half to finish with 20 points. SG Billy Thomas had 10 assists.

Gotta hope the spark we had in the 2nd half carries over to our next game. The win moved us up into a 4-way tie for 5th place. Charleston, Northeastern, and NC-Wilmington sit atop the CAA with perfect 3-0 records.

[PointGuard]

Jan. 12, 2022: Towson Tigers (8-6, 1-2) @ Elon Phoenix (3-11, 0-3)

Alex Haywood, walkon PG

I continue to practice but not play. But I’m not complaining. I get to go on all these good trips like Elon, NC and help keep the bench warm. Well now it isn’t a bench since we each get our own chair.

Good start as we leapt ahead 7-0 and then forced 5 turnovers in first 6 minutes to take a 14-4 lead. Even though we got error-prone and made a bunch of our own turnovers we pulled ahead 26-11 with 6 minutes remaining in the half. Although we made 9 turnovers in the half, Elon continued their sloppy play finishing with 14 first-half turnovers. Our defense also held the Phoenix shooting to 24% whereas we popped in 50% of our shots. The half ended with us on top 39-15. PF Jason Vickers came in off the bench to score 10 points. PG Mateen Carroll had 4 steals.

We went ahead 45-17 in the early part of the 2nd half. But then a brawl broke out in the stands and the game was delayed as authorities tried to break it up and restore order. Our momentum was broken and Elon narrowed the gap to 54-39 with 9-1/2 minutes to go. We regained our control of the game from thereon and won easily 73-56. We held a 36-28 rebounding advantage, a 50% to 34% shooting advantage, and a 21-16 turnover advantage.

SF Wayne Burrough scored 15 to go along with 6 rebounds and 4 assists, PF Jason Vickers had 11 points, and C Melvin Steele added 10 points.

[PointGuard]

Two Weeks To Go

Omar McDade, 1st Assistant (Recruiting) Coach

I’m on pins and needles. Two weeks to go before SAT test scores are announced. We have 3 very highly ranked recruits that have us as their highest school they are interested in. All 3 are very unlikely to get a high enough SAT score though. I'm just hoping maybe one of them guessed well on the test. We’ve not offered a scholarship to any of the 3 but will if any of them eke by with a satisfactory SAT. If none of those 3 qualify, we still have some recruits we’ve worked longer and harder on who are just a little lower rated. But it sure would be great if we can land one of the 3 top-flyers.

[PointGuard]

Jan. 16, 2022: James Madison Dukes (5-10, 2-2) @ Towson Tigers (9-6, 2-2)

Dikeke Portando, Student Band Director

I’m in graduate school and am the student director of the university band. So for each home game I bring a portion of the band to the game and we bleat out the same songs each and every game. We have to play certain songs for some of the cheer squad’s and the dance team’s routines. It’s an easy gig but monotonous.

I was never a basketball fan, but after seeing so many games, I’ve developed an affinity for the team and its players. Most of them don’t seem to appreciate the band much, but Ross Davis does like us and talks with me from time to time. So I root for him even though he’s not getting a lot of playing time.

Ross got into the game for about 5 minutes in the first half, but didn’t do anything worth mentioning. The Tigers also didn’t do all that much worthwhile. Although they got off to an OK start they quickly fell behind and trailed all the way to the end of the half at which point they were behind 43-38. The only player who did well was PF Jason Vickers who came off the bench to score 12 points.

The Tigers faired no better in the 2nd half and actually fell behind by 13 points. But then in the last stages of the game, the team woke up and steadily worked their way back into the game. Then with 2 minutes left, Deon Penn hit a 3 from the corner that finally put the Tigers ahead by a single point. After a turnover by the Dukes, Melvin Steele hit a turnover from the key to put Towson on top 80-77. After James Madison made one of two free throws to get within 2, they were forced to foul. Adrian Brown sunk both free throws to cap an 82-78 comeback win.

PF Jason Vickers was the top scorer with 16 points. PF Deon Penn tossed in 15 points and C Melvin Steele finished with 12 points. C Jason Miner had 9 points and 8 rebounds.

As the teams walked off the court to the locker room, I overheard one of our coaches tell another, “Man, I’m glad we came back to win that, but we just have to start playing better at home. Had it not been for our 20-5 turnover advantage, our goose would have been cooked.”

[PointGuard]

Jan. 19, 2022: Towson Tigers (10-6, 3-2) @ Northeastern Huskies (11-5, 4-1)

Harry Iacona, 3rd Assistant (Scouting) Coach

Going into this game we’re in a 3-way tie for 4th place, one game behind Northeastern and William & Mary and two games behind 5-0 Charleston. This is a game I’ve worried about all year. The Huskies are a tough team and having to go up against them on their court is a huge challenge. They are unbeaten (8-0) at home. Like us they have beaten Delaware, Elon and James Madison, but by slightly bigger margins that did we. Their resume this season also includes a road win over Pac-12 Washington. Northeastern is led by senior SF Mike Clyburn who is averaging 18.0 ppg. PG Lee Pucket is averaging 10.1 ppg and 4.8 apg. Clyburn has scored between 23 and 32 points in 4 of the Huskies 5 most recent contests. We need to keep Clyburn from having yet another of those breakout games. The Huskies’ primary offense is the triangle and they run a man-to-man defense most of the time. Besides trying to keep Clyburn in check, I think the keys to this game are keeping our players out of foul trouble, working the ball around to get some clear shots so we have a good shooting percentage, and not letting the Huskies’ home crowd take us out of our game.

Clyburn scored the first 10 points for Northeastern but we led 13-10 with PF Deon Penn scoring 9 of our points at that point. But the Huskies then edged ahead to finish the half ahead of by a score of 28-25.

Coach Aura told our guys during the half to continue to play tough defense and that we’d win the game. Our guys came out and played solid defense the entire 2nd half that kept the Huskies’ fans quiet. Our offense improved enough for us to score a big-time 63-53 victory. We forced Northeastern to make 21 turnovers.

PG Adrian Brown came up big in the 2nd half to finish with 19 points. PF Deon Penn had a double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds. SG Billy Thomas and C Jason Miner both scored 10 points. For Northeastern, SF Mike Clyburn was the Huskies only player to score in double figures…he finished with 18 points.

The win moved us up into a 3-way tie for 3rd place, a game behind co-leaders William & Mary and Charleston.

[PointGuard]

Jan. 23, 2022: NC-Wilmington Seahawks (9-8, 3-3) @ Towson Tigers (11-6, 4-2)

Baltimore Sun sports section article

DEFENSE DOMINATES

Coming into last night’s game against Towson, NC-Wilmington had 4 players averaging in double figures. This meant that Coach Aura’s Tigers would not be able to focus on controlling one primary player but try to control the entire Seahawks’ lineup.

Towson looked shaky in the first five minutes of play as NC-Wilmington built a 6 point lead, but then the Tigers’ defense clamped down on the Seahawks. Even though Towson’s had trouble hitting their shots, the Tigers ground down the Seahawks and by the end of the first half were in front 35-27. Towson’s guards totally outplayed their counterparts on NC-Wilmington.

In the 2nd half, Towson continued to play a lockdown defense that kept the Seahawks from mounting any sustained comeback. PF Deon Penn scored 12 of his 15 points in the 2nd half. Penn also pulled down 12 rebounds in the game. Towson went on to knock off the Seahawks by a score of 72-55 to improve their CAA record to 5-2 and remain one game behind Charleston and William & Mary which also won last night.

Towson’s top scorer was PG Adrian Brown with 17 points. Brown also had 2 steals and 3 blocks. Brown and Penn, others scoring in double figures for the Tigers were SF Wayne Burrough with 12 points and SG Billy Thomas with 10.

The story of the game, though, was Towson’s defense which held NC-Wilmington to hitting just 36% of their shots and forced the Seahawks to turn the ball over 20 times. Coach Aura confirmed this when he said, “Our defense was stellar tonight. Our guards controlled the game and didn’t allow any of the Seahawks’ guards to contribute offensively. Their defensive pressure caused NC-Wilmington to make errors. That was particularly important tonight when our offense didn’t get untracked, since the turnovers by the Seahawks gave us more offensive opportunities. But in the future though, we need to hit more than 40% of our FG’s if we want to win consistently.”