By Dave Johnson
W&M Athletics
Blown out by this team at home last month, William & Mary had Towson on the ropes early in the second half Thursday night. The Tribe's offense was clicking, its defense was getting out on shooters, and everyone was crashing the boards.
All that changed quickly. With three lengthy runs in the second half, the Tigers pulled away for a 75-60 win in SECU Arena. The Tribe had outstanding performances by
Brandon Carroll (18 points, 7-of-12) and
Tyler Rice (11 points, six assists) but ended up with its third consecutive loss.
"We came out with a really good focus level on both sides of the ball," W&M coach
Dane Fischer said. "The first game against them (a 91-69 loss), we really struggled to guard their stagger actions and keep the ball out of the post. We were much better at both of those.
"Obviously, in the second half, the two biggest things were the offensive rebounds we gave up and we turned the ball over too many times on our end. … When a team gets as many opportunities as they did, it makes the game tough."
In the first half, W&M (5-20, 4-8 CAA) had a 4-3 advantage on the offensive glass. In the second half, Towson flipped that to 14-1. The Tigers finished with 16 second-chance points, 12 of which came in the second half.
Towson, the CAA's third-best 3-point shooting team, was 3-of-12 from the arc in the first half. The Tigers were 8-of-20 the rest of the way, including six consecutive makes during a crucial run that turned an eight-point deficit into a four-point lead.
Towson (18-7, 9-3) had runs of 11-0, 9-0 and 11-0 in the second half.
The turning point came with W&M leading 41-33 two minutes into the second half. After Towson's Cameron Holden missed, W&M's
Ben Wight rebounded and was immediately swarmed by Tiger defenders. Trying to free himself, Wight appeared to make inadvertent contact with Holden in the face.
That was the third foul for Wight, who played only nine scoreless minutes with no rebounds in the first half. The foul was also ruled flagrant, giving Holden two shots and Towson possession.
Holden went 1-for-2, and the Tigers turned it over on their possession. But it started what became an 11-0 run by Towson, which gave it a 44-41 lead on Terry Nolan's 3-pointer with 15:23 remaining.
"He got a tough couple of calls in the second half," Fischer said of Wight. "That's part of playing the game. In the first half, Langdon (Hatton) and Mehkel (Harvey) both stepped up for us. The second half, we tried to work around the foul trouble as best we could."
The Tribe kept pace for a while, and
Miguel Ayesa's 3-pointer cut the lead to 53-52 with 12:26 left. Then came a 9-0 run that bumped Towson's lead to 62-52 with 9:05 remaining.
Back came W&M, which made it 64-58 on Carroll's layup with 7:08 to go. But over the next five-plus minutes, as the Tribe went scoreless on eight consecutive possessions, the Tigers put it away with an 11-0 run.
Aside from 18 turnovers, five coming in the final 5 ½ minutes, W&M played a solid game on the offensive end. The Tribe shot 45% shooting, including 12-of-28 from the 3-point arc. Of its 23 baskets, 16 were assisted.
W&M also got 19 points from its bench, nine by Ayesa on three 3-pointers.
"There's a lot that we can continue to build on," Fischer said.
Next up: The Tribe will travel to Harrisonburg on Saturday to play James Madison at 4 p.m. The Dukes defeated W&M 95-91 in overtime on Jan. 15 in Williamsburg.
