Midway through the second half Saturday against Towson, William and Mary’s offense was searing as usual. The Tribe was shooting 52.9 percent from the field, 45 from beyond the 3-point arc and 83.3 from the free-throw line.
Yet W&M trailed.
By 17!
Defense, anyone?
The Tribe is college basketball’s best shooting bunch, the Colonial Athletic Association’s first-place team and often wildly entertaining. It’s authored two of the season’s most dramatic comebacks to date.
But defense is a challenge, and rarely more so than in Saturday’s humbling, 99-73 defeat.
“I give (Towson) all the credit in the world for how they controlled the ballgame,” W&M coach Tony Shaver said. “Very disappointed in how we competed tonight … individually and collectively. Certainly didn’t represent what I hope our program stands for tonight.”
Towson (13-6, 3-3 CAA) made 10 consecutive shots during the second half, 11-of-12 late in the first. The Tigers shot 64.4 percent for the game and made 13-of-22 (59.1 percent) from beyond the 3-point arc.
W&M (12-5, 5-1) was relatively sub-par offensively, but the Golden State Warriors couldn’t have overcome this defensive effort.
“It’s not good enough defensively just to be there,” Tribe guard David Cohn said. “You’ve got to make them uncomfortable, and they were very comfortable shooting the ball tonight. We’ve got to get better at that.”
Unbeaten in seven previous home games, W&M led 33-19 midway through the opening half after Cohn made the fourth of his six 3-pointers. But the Tribe’s defensive softness, whether in man-to-man or zone, emerged.
Towson outscored W&M 80-40 the remainder of the game.
The Tigers went on a 17-2 binge late in the first half and led 49-43 at intermission. Older and more athletic than the Tribe, they were even better in the second half, scoring 10 points in transition and nine off Tribe turnovers.
Mike Morsell and Zane Martin led six double-figure Towson scorers with 23 and 20 points, respectively.
“I haven’t seen a team do that here in a long time,” Shaver said. “It was a dunk fest there in transition. We’d miss a shot, and two of our guys wouldn’t get to halfcourt, and that’s just not us.”
W&M began the day ranked first nationally in 3-point percentage at 45.2, second in free-throw percentage at 81.8 and ninth in field-goal percentage at 51.2. No other team is among the top 20 in all three categories.
“An offensive juggernaut,” Towson coach Pat Skerry said.
Skerry was especially effusive about 6-foot-10 Tribe forward Nathan Knight, whom he called a NBA prospect. Knight led the team with 22 points and seven rebounds Saturday but played cautiously in the second half after committing three first-half fouls.
W&M was on pace to match its season shooting accuracy for much of Saturday, but as the game got sideways — this was the program’s most-lopsided home defeat since a 92-61 setback to Richmond in 2011 — its shot selection deteriorated, with predictable results. The Tribe finished at 47.8 percent from the field, 34.6 percent from three.
“I think our guys have read our press clippings way too much this week,” Shaver said. “We felt it in practice Tuesday, we felt it in practice Wednesday, a lot of people telling us how good we are and we’re in first place. We miraculously pulled out a game Thursday and tonight we played a team that was too good to dig out of that hole (against).”
W&M rallied from 18 down in the final 12-plus minutes and nine down in the final 50 seconds to defeat James Madison on Thursday. Earlier this season, the Tribe defeated Old Dominion by two on reserve Oliver Tot’s shot from beyond halfcourt at the horn.
“This team’s done some amazing things,” Shaver said, “but we’re not good enough to not compete and not play well and come close to winning in this league. We’ve got to understand that. This team this week has not honored the process of a season long of getting better. …
“We’ve got to get better every day to be in the fight in March. It’s just that simple. We learned a really hard lesson about that tonight.”
But as Shaver told his players afterward, they’re still in first place entering Thursday’s home date with Northeastern.
“I am really proud of that,” he said, “and I wanted them to hear that. … I also told them on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday they better get ready for the hardest practices we’ve had all year because we’re not gonna lose the competitive spirit. We’re gonna find that again.”
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