Anyone who has been to a Towson men’s basketball game in the past decade and a half knows head coach Pat Skerry can get a little animated on the sideline. Fans never have to guess what Skerry thinks of a particular possession.
But is he like that in practice, too?
“What you see is what you get,” junior wing Tyler Tejada said. “He don’t sugarcoat nothing. He’s like that all the time.”
“Yes, he is, depending on the type of practice we have, but for the most part he’s the same,” redshirt junior point guard Dylan Williamson said. “He doesn’t really like to change it up. Sometimes he’s more chill and on the lighter side, but most of the time he’s the same way.”
“I feel like he’s only like that when we’re not staying on top of what we need to get done and the energy’s not there and guys are doing stuff out of character, which happens,” redshirt senior forward Abdou Samb said. “Yeah, he gets like that. It’s competitive. We want to win, so when we step on the court, he’s going to be the same way.”
Skerry will officially begin Year 15 at Towson when the Tigers tip off the regular season against Loyola on Nov. 3 at 9 p.m. as part of the Hall of Fame Series at CFG Bank Arena, where he’ll surely wear his emotions on his sleeve.
But Skerry is also known for bringing consistency to Towson, where he has won 20 or more games in each of the past four seasons. He has won two CAA regular-season titles during that time as well. He is 235-210 as the head coach of the Tigers since taking over ahead of the 2011-12 season, with his teams typically specializing in defense, rebounding and toughness.
The college basketball landscape has shifted tremendously since Skerry began at Towson, with each offseason turning into what is essentially unfettered free agency. However, Skerry has made a habit in recent years of keeping his best players on campus.
What would Skerry have said if someone had told him during the initial 1-31 campaign that this is how his tenure at Towson would play out?
“I would’ve said you’re crazy,” Skerry said. “It’s moved incredibly fast. I’ve really enjoyed it, just the quest of how do we try to get better and be competitive every year. It’s been really fun watching how the area and the university has really developed and evolved. Hopefully our program’s a little bit of a microcosm of that. I feel honored to be able to do it. I’ve still got the same juice, if not more, driving up every day.”
An inflection point for Skerry’s program came during the 2020-21 season, when challenges related to COVID-19 limited the Tigers to just 14 games. Towson had a number of contributors back from a 19-win season the year prior, leaving Skerry to believe the Tigers had a chance to have another successful season.
And then Towson won just four games.
“I thought we were going to be great and then the wheels just totally came off,” Skerry said. “So now you’re like, ‘Oh boy, what just happened? They just pulled the ripcord on the entire operation.’ Now, it did give us a chance to change how we play, evaluate how we were recruiting and developing. We’ve been on a good run and hope we can continue that run and take it a little bit further.”
Skerry and his staff opted to focus on high school players from Philadelphia to Northern Virginia in recruiting and build the program around them. That has led to highly successful recruit-and-develop stories like Tejada and Williamson.
Tejada, a 6-foot-9, 220-pound wing out of Teaneck, N.J., earned CAA Player of the Year honors in 2024-25 by averaging 16.7 points and 3.9 rebounds per game for a Tigers team that went 22-11 overall and 16-2 in the CAA. Williamson, a 6-foot-1, 180-pound point guard out of Bowie, averaged 14.6 points and 2.6 assists per game while shooting 43.8 percent from 3-point range.
Both opted to return to Towson for another season, and as such, the Tigers are the preseason favorite in the CAA.
“I think we’ve got a really good product here at Towson,” Skerry said. “We’ve been fortunate to try to get the right kind of guys. I think the families value how we’re going to coach them and invest in them. And certainly, it takes some good luck, too. I’m just appreciative. I want to keep every guy that comes in here. It’s like the Boston Marathon. Everyone that starts, I hope they finish the race. Now, it doesn’t happen that way, but that’s certainly our hope.”
Skerry dipped into the portal this past offseason to fill some holes on the roster, bringing aboard graduate guards Jack Doumbia Jr. (Wright State) and Tyler Schmidt (Valparaiso) and senior center Mor Seck (Fresno State). The coach also attacked the high school ranks, adding forward Brandon Holmes (Mount Saint Joseph), wing Jaquan Womack (Paul VI) and guard Jon Barton (St. John’s College).
Now, the 2025-26 Tigers hope to accomplish something no Towson team has since 1991 — make the NCAA Tournament. Skerry’s teams have topped out in the semifinal round of the CAA tournament — which has been the case the past four years — but Tejada and Williamson would love to be the ones to send Skerry to the Big Dance.
“It would mean everything,” Tejada said. “I know it’s the last thing on the list. We’ve got to check that box, so it definitely would mean everything for that to happen.”
“That would mean everything to the school,” Williamson said. “It’s been awhile since the school has been to the tournament, so that’s really been our goal for the past couple years. Four years, stuck in that same game, so we’re really just trying to get over that hump. I think that would mean everything to me and Coach.”
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox