Stop by a Towson men’s basketball game and you’ll see twin brothers do battle for the Tigers.
Well, junior Christian May and sophomore Tyler Tejada look like twins, anyway. Not only that, May wears No. 5 and Tejada, No. 15 — and they play similar roles as wings in head coach Pat Skerry’s system.
“If you’re watching film back and somebody’s in the far corner and you see hair and the lighter skin and the No. 5, you kind of have to think twice about who it is,” teammate Nendah Tarke said. “Even statisticians last year, especially on the road, messed it up. Christian would make a three and they would give it to Tejada. Or Tejada would make a layup and it would go to Christian.”
The confusion extends the TV broadcast …
“A lot of times I’ll rewatch the games,” May said. “I’ll score and [the broadcasters will] say Tyler Tejada with the bucket or Tyler will score and they’ll say Christian May. I usually find it pretty funny. I think it’s probably because we both kind of have the same hair, curly dark hair. That’s how they usually get us confused.”
… and to the peanut gallery.
“Definitely some people in the stands will make jokes about it,” Tejada said.
May and Tejada were two of eleven players from last year’s Tigers squad to return to Towson this year with a mission of turning regular-season success into a postseason breakthrough. The Tigers went 20-14 overall and 11-7 in the Coastal Athletic Association in 2023-24, but they fell in the CAA semifinals for a third straight season.
The 6-foot-5, 210-pound May averaged 10.7 points and 4.1 rebounds in 35 games (33 starts) as a sophomore a year ago, while the 6-foot-9, 220-pound Tejada averaged 10.3 points and 3.2 rebounds in 35 games (28 starts) as a freshman. Tejada posted better shooting numbers across the board (42 percent from the field, 35.3 percent from 3-point range and 84.7 percent from the line). Both had bumpy starts to the 2024-25 season, with May slowed by a concussion and Tejada by a sprained ankle.
Both were originally recruited out of the high school ranks by Skerry, with May coming from Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington, Va., and Tejada from Teaneck High School in North Jersey. Towson bucks the trend of Division I rosters being littered with transfer portal pickups. May and Tejada serve as examples that it’s still possible for programs to recruit, develop and retain talent.
“I feel like if we can be a school that takes high school kids and develops them, that would be amazing,” May said. “I feel like it helps the team a lot, too, not having new kids every year, having to bond with them and make sure they learn the system. Being able to have your guys every single year buy in and have the same guys, build them up through four years, I think it’s really beneficial.”
May sifted through about 10 offers and committed to Towson in November 2021 ahead of his senior season at O’Connell, crediting his decision to his relationship with Skerry and the culture at Towson. Skerry had already secured a commitment from guard Dylan Williamson, now a redshirt sophomore guard for the Tigers, and was looking for a wing. May, who played on AAU squad Team Takeover with Williamson, was the perfect fit.
Skerry knew it, too. The coach made a habit of visiting O’Connell in the fall of 2021.
“In the fall, you can watch guys work out. You can only go once a week, so I just went in five straight weeks and we got him to come up a couple times and got him,” Skerry said. “We’ve never been big on what’s a guy rated or who’s recruiting him. It’s more like, ‘Hey, this is what we see. We trust the people around him.'”
Less than a year later, Towson landed Tejada, who committed in September 2022. Skerry has long known Tejada’s high school coach Damon Wright, who told the Tigers’ head coach he needed to get a jump on Tejada.
Much like with May, Skerry found Tejada had the right support system around him that had instilled responsibility and accountability.
“He’s an incredible worker, and you can coach him,” Skerry said. “He’s got an unbelievable mom, a really good family. … I think that we’ve been able to really coach him and have that type of support, so that’s allowing him to go this way. He wants to be really good. I have not been around anyone that works any harder than him in 32 years of doing this.”
May and Tejada teamed up for the first time in the 2023-24 season, which for a fleeting moment appeared to be heading to a potentially special place. Towson held a 55-48 lead against top-seeded College of Charleston at the final media timeout in the CAA semifinals before scoring one point the rest of the way en route to a 61-56 loss.
Just like that, the Tigers’ season was over. The Cougars went on to earn the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament a day later.
“The guys that were here last year, we still have that painful feeling of walking out of there after we lost,” Tejada said. “The new guys that came in, they were introduced to that right away. They don’t know the exact feeling, obviously, because they weren’t here but they know how much it motivates us and how much we want to get back to that position and this time win it.”
It was a particularly difficult loss for May, who airballed the front end of a one-and-one down by two with 20.2 seconds left. He had struggled from the charity stripe all year (62.8 percent), and it came back to bite him at the worst time.
“That free throw definitely hurt. If I could do anything, I would make that free throw,” May said. “I feel like the main thing I learned is that you’re going to have battles in life and you can’t let those defeats define you. You’ve got to bounce back from it. You can’t hang your head on what happened. You’ve got to move forward and think about the future and the goals that you want to get done. I think that’s what all of us have done and that’s what’s on my mind right now.”
The Tigers can’t simply jump ahead to the CAA tournament in March 2025, though. They have to focus on getting better each and every day, and that kicks into high gear when CAA play begins at UNC Wilmington on Jan. 2.
But there’s no hiding from what storyline will follow Towson once March does roll around — trying to go to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1991.
“It would mean everything for us,” Tejada said. “We felt like it should’ve been us last year, but things didn’t happen that way. We’re really motivated to make it happen this year. That’s the plan for all of us.”
Photo Credits: Kenya Allen/PressBox
Issue 290: December 2024 / January 2025
Originally published Dec. 18, 2024