By : Aaron Robinson
Coming into Sunday, Towson had lost eight straight games, including a nine point loss on Saturday that saw Northwestern sophomore guard Tyson Walker pour in a career-high 36 points on 13-20 shooting from the floor. The Huskies shot a scorching 56% from the floor in a 76-67 victory.
On Sunday, the Tigers were without guards Zane Martin, who is the Tigers leading scorer, and Cam Alen who is a key reserve off the bench.
“First off, we are thinking of Cam,” Skerry said after the game when asked why Allen was absent. “Right after the game yesterday he had a family emergency, he had to go back home, and hopefully we can get him back in a couple days.”
When asked about Martin though, Skerry had this to say:
“That was my decision with Zane. Right now it is one of the things that i’ve talked about with our group, it’s that we need the right ingredients in the sauce, we have been struggling, so we are going to play younger guys.”
When asked if Martin would be back, Skerry said, “I am not really ready to answer that.”
Martin had been averaging 16.5 points. 3.8 rebounds, and 3.5 assists for the Tigers, so without him, they would need some added scoring from their guards.
Sophomore guard Jason Gibson provided that spark in the first six minutes of the game, tallying seven points and one assist on 2-2 shooting from the floor.
But with 13:39 remaining in the half, Charles Thompson collected a lose ball, threw an outlet pass to Gibson, who attacked the rim, and was fouled by Jason Strong of Northeastern.
Gibson landed hard on his back, and would not return for the remainder of the afternoon.
Towson was now without both of their starting guards, and two of their three leading scorers.
With an 11-7 lead, it was unclear where Towson’s offense would come from for the remainder of the game.
Enter Jakigh Dottin and Nicolas Timberlake.
Dottin, who came into this weekend's series averaging just three points per game on about 14 minutes per outing, tallied 22 points in 57 total minutes on Saturday and Sunday.
In the latter game, Dottin finished with 13 points, five rebounds, and four assists in 34 minutes of action, while holding Walker to 16 points on 6-16 shooting from the field.
“Coach always preaches next man up, if somebody goes down, the next man has got to step up so that’s really what it was,” Dottin, a 6-foot-2 inch junior from Cambridge, Massachusetts said.
“No Zane, no cam, Jason goes down, it’s next man up.”
Towson also got a huge contribution from sophomore guard Nicolas Timberlake who played all 40 minutes this afternoon scoring 22 points, and adding two rebounds, and two assists.
“He was tremendous, we defended, we rebounded, and we rode Nick,” Skerry said.
“With those three out, I just thought it should be my time to takeover, and that’s what I did offensively,” Timberlake said.
It was truly a group effort on offense for the shorthanded Tigers as seven of the nine players to check in to the game scored a basket.
And on the defensive side of the ball, the Tigers held the Huskies to 36% shooting from the floor and out-rebounded the Huskies by nine.
A big part of that paint advantage was sophomore Forward Charles Thompson.
Thompson, who manned the paint for the Tigers finished with 11 points and 11 rebounds, tallying his third double-double of the season.
“Yesterday I didn’t feel like I was aggressive, not necessarily with my shot taking, but with my rebounding, boxing out, I wasn’t as physical as I needed to be so last night I watched some tape and made that an emphasis on my game, and this is what the outcome was,” Thompson said.
With no timetable on the return of Martin, and with Allen being day to day, the Tigers will continue to need to win by committee and they will specifically need Dottin to continue the production that he had over the weekend.
Is this something that can be replicated for Dottin? If so, how?
“Staying focused is really what it is, maintaining my habits, keep doing the same things that i’m doing like getting in early before practice, staying late after practice going hard in all my reps, that’s really what it is,” Dottin said.
This win gets the Tigers to 3-9 in CAA play, with four games remaining on the conference slate. Towson will head to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania next weekend to play Drexel before finishing off their conference season with a home series against Delaware in two weeks.