Considering the graduation of its top four scorers from last season's squad that helped set a single-season record for wins, Towson's struggles this winter aren't terribly shocking.
But that's of little consolation to coach Pat Skerry, who said the Tigers (8-11, 1-5 in the Colonial Athletic Association) are having a difficult time finding victories.
"I think our group is practicing hard," he said Tuesday morning during his weekly conference call organized by the league. "I like the group. But obviously, we're frustrated and disappointed. We know we can be better. So we're still kind of searching for that consistency – although now that we're getting into conference play a little bit, now would be a good time to find some of that."
Towson is in the midst of a tailspin. Since opening the season 7-1 run, the Tigers have dropped 10 of their past 11 games, including the last four. The latest defeat was Saturday's 85-72 loss to conference rival William & Mary (11-6, 5-1) at SECU Arena.
Skerry said he spent a considerable amount of time talking to his players during a team meeting on Sunday.
"We're frustrated and we're disappointed, but I'm not going home at night like I did in my first year saying, 'Oh my God, we are in for it,'" he said. "Quite the contrary, which is why it's frustrating. We've had a chance to play a couple of really good teams in William & Mary. They're a terrific club, but we just didn't guard the 3-point shot, which was really our big message. We had a chance against Northeastern to send the game into overtime, and we didn't do that. So there's something there. We've just got to kind of pull it together. We've got holes like a lot of teams do and some of those holes, you've got to try to somewhat mask them. But it's more the other stuff. We experiment at times when we shouldn't be experimenting."
The Tigers can end their losing streak when they visit Elon on Thursday night. Towson edged the Phoenix, 57-53, on Jan. 5, but Skerry said that's no guarantee for another victory.
"For us, it's going to be a matter of doing what we do well in preparing for Elon," he said. "Can you close out a game? Can you win a game? Can you make enough plays late? I think both the exciting thing for me and the concern is I would anticipate that we're going to have a whole lot of games that are going to be close. It's just a matter of trying to figure out how to come out on the right side of them."