In a college basketball era defined by turnover, Towson men’s hoops breaks the mold.
The Tigers, fresh off three consecutive 20-plus-win seasons, return 11 players from last year’s team and every major contributor but one. Towson fell to eventual Coastal Athletic Association champion College of Charleston, 61-56, in the conference semifinals in March, the third straight year the Tigers have lost in the semifinals.
However, unlike most programs in Division I hoops, Towson can pick up where it left off last year with almost its entire team returning. The preseason CAA favorite’s journey begins in California on Nov. 4 against Saint Mary’s, an annual contender in the West Coast Conference.
“We thought just with the group we had last year we fell short,” Towson redshirt sophomore guard Dylan Williamson said at the team’s media day on Oct. 30. “The strong culture that we have and the relationships that we’ve built with each other, especially from last season, we decided to all come back and really try to make history here.”
Williamson is one of the many contributors who returned for another chance at lifting the Tigers to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1991. Junior wing Christian May, sophomore wing Tyler Tejada, redshirt senior guard Nendah Tarke and Williamson lead the pack. The four were responsible for 56.3 percent of Towson’s points a year ago, with all of them averaging at least 9.8 points per game.
May, Tejada and Williamson were recruited to Towson straight out of high school and now serve as leaders for the program.
“Our whole philosophy, especially coming out of COVID, was to try to recruit a little bit better [and a] different type of student from a different program, background and really invest in them on and off the court in hopes that we could retain them,” Tigers head coach Pat Skerry said. “Not that the portal’s bad. We’ve got a good transfer this year. But our hope is to get good young guys — we’re going to have a great recruiting haul locally — and play those guys early and then hold on to them.”
Towson does have to replace a major contributor in center Charles Thompson, who exhausted his eligibility last season. Thompson played five years for the Tigers, earning four straight CAA All-Defensive Team nods. His defensive versatility was a defining feature of the Tigers in recent years, in addition to an offensive game that steadily improved.
Big men Messiah Jones, Abdou Samb and Caleb Embeya figure to replace Thompson. Jones is a graduate student whose minutes have a chance to increase. Samb is the team’s lone incoming transfer (IUPUI). Embeya is a freshman out of St. Maria Goretti.
Otherwise, though, it’ll be a lot of familiar faces who opted to return rather than test the transfer portal.
“I’m thankful for that. It says a lot about the type of kids we have,” Skerry said. “They’re in it for the right reasons. They’ve got really good families. We’ve got a great staff. My staff does a really good job, so we care about them. We’re committed to them.”
What’s more, Towson got a full offseason with Tarke, who played just 24 games last year due to an eligibility issue. A native of Gaithersburg, Tarke played the first three years of his college career at Coppin State and then averaged 9.8 points, 5.1 rebounds and 2.2 assists with the Tigers a year ago.
Skerry is looking for Tarke “to play like Derrick Henry” — in other words, to play a physical, downhill brand of basketball. Tarke wants to reach the NCAA Tournament for the first time in his career, but there are many practices and games before he has a chance to make that a reality.
“Of course you want to win at the end of the day, but it’s still a process. You don’t want to skip steps to get there,” Tarke said. “We’re going to take it one day at a time, one game at a time. We know that that’s our end goal. We’re far from that now, but if we keep up with the right habits and doing the right things, everything should take care of itself. We know we want to win, but we know that it’s a long way from now and we’ve just got to keep learning and building off of that.”
Photo Credit: Colin Murphy/PressBox