Although it hasn’t exactly been the magic carpet ride for the Towson Tigers Basketball squad like last year, they will participate in the CAA Conference Tournament beginning Friday at the Royal Farms Arena.
The Tigers (12-19, 5-15 in CAA play), will play in the #8/#9 game Friday at 6pm vs. CAA newcomer, the Elon Phoenix – which I will be covering for BSR live from press row.
Elon joined the CAA this year after playing in the Southern Conference, and has wins over CAA top-level teams like Northeastern and UNC Wilmington in its last two games.
Key players: Elijah Bryant (13.9 ppg, 4.2 rpg), Luke Eddy (13.0 ppg, 2.4 rpg), Tanner Samson (13.6 ppg, 4.3 rpg)
Samson led the CAA with 98 three-pointers, which also happens to be 7th all time in CAA history.
Head coach Pat Skerry’s Tigers have played in a ton of close contests this year, but lost most of them. Last year, the Tigers made it to the semi-finals of the CAA tourney only to lose to this year’s top seed, William & Mary, in OT.
Key players: Four McGlynn (12.0 ppg, 2.2 rpg), John Davis (11.9 ppg, 8.1 rpg), Byron Hawkins (7.4 ppg, 1.9 rpg)
This year’s squad doesn’t have many big scorers, but everyone rebounds. The Tigers lead the CAA in rebounds per game (36.4), offensive rebounds per game (14.5), and average rebound margin (8.2). Davis, who comes off the bench, leads the CAA with 12 double-doubles.
In their only meeting this year, the Tigers pulled out a 55-53 win at Towson with the Tigers out-rebounding the Phoenix 38-28 while holding Elon to a putrid 29% shooting from the field.
The winner of this game will have a quick turn around as they will play #1 seed William & Mary Tribe at noon on Saturday.
Four teams (William & Mary, UNC Wilmington, Northeastern, James Madison) all tied with identical 12-6 conference records, but the Tribe won the tie-breaker as they were 5-1 in games head up against those teams.
Tickets can be purchased at the Royal Farms box office or ahead of time online.
