The Towson men’s basketball team entered last year’s CAA tournament as the top seed and favorite, but the Tigers fell in the semifinals to Delaware, which went on to earn the CAA’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
This year, Towson enters the CAA tournament at Entertainment & Sports Arena in D.C. as the No. 3 seed after going 20-11 overall and 12-6 in league play during the regular season. The Tigers have a bye into the quarterfinal round on March 5, when they’ll face the winner of No. 6 seed Delaware and No. 11 seed Northeastern from the previous day.
Towson split its two-regular matchups against Delaware and won its lone contest against Northeastern. But none of that matters anymore, as the Tigers found out last year.
“I kind of learned it’s one game at a time. It’s not a seven-game series or nothing like that,” Towson redshirt senior Cam Holden said on Glenn Clark Radio March 2. “The championship goes to the most connected team, not the team who’s got the best regular-season record. We’ve got to be sharp on the defensive end and the offensive end also. … Delaware was in our position last year, and they won the championship, so that’s kind of the mindset we’ve got right now, that we’re not done.”
Holden has slotted in as a playmaking point forward for Towson with the Tigers losing senior point guard Jason Gibson to a season-ending back injury early in the year. Holden averaged 14.3 points, 7.1 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game en route to second-team All-CAA honors.
Holden, graduate guard Nicolas Timberlake and senior center Charles Thompson form a productive nucleus for the Tigers even without the sharpshooting Gibson around. Timberlake averaged 17.7 points per game and shot 42.2 percent from 3-point range on his way to first-team All-CAA honors. Thompson averaged 12.3 points and 8.0 rebounds and picked up second-team All-CAA and All-Defensive Team honors.
Towson head coach Pat Skerry has worked in younger pieces like sophomore guard Rahdir Hicks (2.2 assists per game), redshirt freshman guard Ryan Conway (42.4 percent from deep) and freshman wing Christian May (38 percent from long range) throughout the season.
Holden likes the mix as his team enters postseason play.
“We’ve got older guys on the team, so me, Nick and Charles, we kind of talked about it [on March 1], we’ve got to be sharp,” Holden said. “We’ve got teammates and everything, but us three guys, if we can be sharp, we’ll have a great chance to win every time. If two of three have a good game, we still have a great chance of winning. The younger guys have just got to play their roles. They know their roles on the team. They know what to do.”
The top two seeds in the CAA tournament are Hofstra (No. 1) and the College of Charleston (No. 2), both of which went 16-2 in the league during the regular season. Towson split with Hofstra and lost twice to Charleston. Towson would play Charleston in the semifinals on March 6 if both teams get that far.
That sounds good to Holden, who is still thinking about the opportunities the Tigers left on the hardwood against the Cougars. Towson lost in overtime in the first matchup, then missed 10 free throws in an eight-point loss more recently.
“I’d be hyped to play a third game and see where it goes,” Holden said. “I think the basketball gods would be like, ‘All right, you’ve got to play them a third time.’ It’s hard to beat a team a third time. They’re well-coached. We’re well-coached. I’m ready to do it on a neutral court. I mean, there’s no better place to play basketball than a neutral court. I feel like that would be a good one.”
Towson has not made the NCAA Tournament since 1991, and breaking that drought is the only thing on Holden’s mind. Individual accolades don’t matter anymore — just getting into the tournament before he runs out of eligibility at the end of the season.
“I just want to do it for the people here because I hear a lot of stuff like, ‘They ain’t going to make it. It’s the same script, same story always, same guys,'” Holden said. “I’m trying to break in. I’ve got one life to do it. This is my last life here. It’s a lot more pressure because I know I can’t come back and be like, ‘Oh, we’ve got next year to try to get in.’ No, this is the last shot.”
For more from Holden, listen to the full interview here:
Photo Credit: Colin Murphy