Seawolves Fans

Don't worry, Chuck will give the standard excuses...

Losing Bedell, Liotine, and White meant that our offense wasn't able to operate as we prepared.
Playing on the road is tough, especially in the CAA.  Maine is a tough place to win.
Maine's a good young team, with a lot of talented players.
A couple of unlucky bounces changed the whole course of the game (muffed punt, sack/strip/fumble/TD).


Just some fun stats....
26 carries for 10 yards.
171yds of total offense
8 penalties for 83 yards
If we take out Bolden's one long reception, our average pass depth was ~7yds.


I don't care how good your defense is, playing offense like it's 1965 isn't going to win.  We've seen this same offensive scheme for years, and it's not going to change as long as the current staff is in place.  When you have a borderline NFL RB and play in the Big South, you can get away with it.  When you actually play against legitimate teams, you get whatever you call our current situation.

Now I still think we SHOULD beat Howard, Elon, and URI.  Which puts us at 5-5 (6-4 if Albany is a bigger mess than we are), meaning that Chuck can yet again say it's been a "successful season" considering the injuries, close losses, etc.  (I can see it now, "If Bedell stayed healthy, we win those close games, and we're an 8-win playoff team").  Which probably means he keeps his gig.

Is it wrong to think it would be better if we lose out the rest of the season?

You don't want to root for someone to be fired, but i'm starting to #beLIeve that we shouldn't be in the CAA.  We'd fit better in the NEC or Patriot League.

Yesterday we got the result we deserved.  We SHOULD have won the game, but we did absolutely nothing to earn it.

After the first quarter, no adjustments were made, and we just reverted to "ultra-conservative" play calling.  When you average 1.8 yds/carry, refuse to go off-tackle, and lock on to only one WR, your offense will fail.  44 carries for 74 yards will never be good enough.

Towson basically admitted that our offense was garbage.  They squib-kicked it, going for it on 4th in their own territory, etc.  You can tell that they weren't scared to give us great field position, because they knew we can do nothing with it.

After the game, I honestly couldn't find one thing that made me optimistic about the team.  We should still beat URI, Elon, and Howard.  But UA and Maine are going to be tough, and even if we win out, I think the team regressed.

It's a lock that Pikiell is here until at least the end of the 2017-18 season (when Thrower, Sekunda, Nyama, Petras, and Sturdivant graduate).

Pikiell is doing a very good job, but at what point are we allowed to say that "very good" is "not good enough"?

Just looking at the season stats... Out of 351 teams, we finished:

230th in PPG, 29th in PPG defense

This could be explained by our "run the clock down in order to minimize possessions" style.  So obviously the gameplan is to to limit possessions, keep both teams from scoring.  But to win, you need to be efficient with the limited offensive possessions you have.  Let's see how we did.

261st in FG %
230th in 3pt FG %
308th in Points Per Shot

Ok, so we're not hitting the shots, and as a result, we're only netting out on 1.15 pts per shot.  Not ideal.  How about "extra opportunities":

312th in steals
262nd in FT %
6th in RPG

I think this shows how crucial rebounding was to us winning games this year.  Once we got out-rebounded, we were cooked.

Something to consider is that these numbers are inflated by games against Maine/UMBC/Bing...  Forget FT's, start working on ANY type of shooting.

They are also missing their 6th man, a pretty talented freshman.

I think the commentators are actually the Mercer guys.  You can hear they are familiar with mercer, don't know us at all (first 10 minutes they kept saying how good Warner is...). All in all, I don't find them too bad.

Totally agree about the Mcallister thing.  Great call!

We missed FT's down the stretch, couldn't break the press, had multiple mental errors, and as a result we only scored 50 pts.  These problems have plagued us all season, and it cost us a championship.

I'm hoping that the coaches, players, and athletic department all use this as an opportunity to recognize where the weaknesses are, and work to improve them for the future.

We'll get a CBI/CIT invite (as will Vermont and UNH), the NIT is not realistic (in my opinion).  It'll give us a chance to end the season on a better note (if nothing else, the last play of the season won't be Trey bouncing the ball out-of-bounds).  Plus, the extra game will get Warney closer to 2000pts.

Hartford gets the ESPN love because they have a starting lineup with 5 seniors.

I'm quite ok with this.  Preseason accolades mean nothing, I'm ready to see our guys prove themselves on the court.  The only teams that look dangerous are Hartford and Albany, and even Albany only has two real big men.

Regardless, you can never count Vermont out, and there is always a random team that comes out of nowhere.  Until we actually hoist the banner, I won't be celebrating.

I was at the game yesterday, really enjoyed the experience.

The defense played terrific (as usual), the offense wasn't awful, and special teams was fine.  The wind on the field was a lot stronger than it seemed, you could see it on kickoffs and punts.

I'm still aggravated about the coaching staff.  Towson had a 4th and 22, you know they are looking for the pass interference, and that any contact would make the WR flop faster than an Italian in the World Cup. Why are we pressing at the line?  Just defend the first down marker, don't give the refs any reason to throw the flag.  That's on the coaches.

I'm really getting tired of up-the-middle draw plays on 3rd and long.  We know you're going to do it.  They know you're going to do it.  If you're going to do that, avoid the risk of fumble/injury and just punt.

On a personal note, the SBU fans in attendance were excellent.  We were surrounded by fans who actually know whats going on, and who cared throughout the game. That made the experience that much better.

It was very strange to see the stands be virtually empty, shows you how disappointed the Towson fans must be.