Tribe Wraps Up Road Trip at Towson

The Tribe-Tiger match-up will be televised on Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic.

02/15/08 6:45PM

Williamsburg - The William and Mary men’s basketball team wraps up its three-game road trip at Towson on Saturday, Feb. 16. The game will be televised on Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic and will tip-off at 4 p.m. It will be the second meeting between the two schools in less than a month.

W&M is coming off a 77-64 set back at UNC Wilmington on Feb. 13. The Tribe only turned the basketball over on five occasions, but struggled to find the shooting touch. Sophomore Danny Sumner led three W&M player in double figures with 14 points, while junior Peter Stein had 12 points and senior Nathan Mann added 11. Along with its five turnovers, the Tribe had 15 assists against UNCW. Towson has dropped four straight games, including its most recent contest at home on Feb. 13 to George Mason, 85-73.

Fans can catch all the action on the Tribe Radio Network with Jay Colley, Bill McDonald and Charlie Woollum on the call. The contest will also be available over Internet at TribeAthletics.com.

Story lines
- W&M needs only seven made 3-point field goal to better the school reocrd for treys made in a season. The current record is 200 set last season.

- The Tribe will look to garner its 10th league victory, marking only the second time in school history that W&M has won 10 or more CAA games.

- Eight of the Tribe’s last 17 wins in the Colonial Athletic Association have com on the road.

For complete W&M men's basketball notes, click HERE.

Scouting Towson
The Tigers have lost four straight games entering the Saturday contest with the Tribe. After its loss to W&M in Williamsburg on Jan. 19, Towson won three straight games, before losing its last four. Towson has enjoyed the greatest success this season at home, winning eight of its nine games at home this season. The Tigers are 8-4 overall at home this season. Towson is 9-15 overall on the year to go along with a 5-9 CAA record.

Towson lost its most recent contest at home to George Mason after dropping its previous three games on the road. The Tigers fell to George Mason, who is No. 2 in the CAA standings, 85-73. The Tigers knocked down 10 3-point field goals against the Patriots, but GMU shot 52.2 percent from the field in the victory. Josh Thornton led Towson with 23 points, including a 5-of-12 effort from 3-point range, while Tony Durant tallied 18 points and six rebounds. C.C. Williams finished with 10 assists compared to only two turnovers.

Junior Hairston leads the Tigers in scoring at 12.4 points to go along with 9.7 rebounds per game. The only other Towson player to average in double figures is Josh Thornton at 11.9 points per game. Thornton joined the Tiger after joining the program from Georgetown. He is shooting 41.1 percent from 3-point range, while 76.4 percent from his chanced come from 3-point range. Pease averages 7.8 points per game, while C.C Williams leads the team in assists per game at 4.5 per contest.

Towson Series History
The Tribe leads the all-time series with Towson at 10-7, but the Tigers hold the advantage at Towson, 5-2. W&M dropped the last contest in Towson during the 2005-06 season, 76-45. In the meeting earlier this season, the Tribe claimed a 61-51 win in Williamsburg. The College knocked down eight 3-point field goals and dominated the points in the paint category, 16-4, on its way to the victory. Laimis Kisielius led the Tribe with 17 points and nine rebounds. Four different Tribe players scored in double figures as Peter Stein had 15 points and both Danny Sumner and Nathan Mann added 10 points apiece.

Longball Records Set to Fall
The Tribe has relied heavily on the 3-point shot during the 2007-08 campaign and are one the brink of shattering school-record marks for shooting the long ball. Last season, W&M established the school marks for 3-pointers made (200) and attempted (624), and just one short season later those record are in serious jeopardy.

This season, W&M is knocking down over eight 3-pointers a game and had connected on 194 from downtown. That number already ranks second in school history and at its current pace the College would better the mark on Saturday against Towson. W&M has attempted 544 treys this season and at its current rate would better the mark from last season. The 544 longball attempts are the fifth most in school history.

W&M is hitting at a high rate from long range, shooting 35.7 percent. The percentage is the highest for the College since 1996. During that campaign, W&M shot 36.8 percent from 3-point range. The Tribe’s per game average of 8.08 would also establish a new school record and is over one 3-pointer per game better than the previous mark of 6.93 set in 1998.

On the Boards
Junior forward Peter Stein became the first W&M player in two years to pull down double-digit rebounds with his career-high 11 at Northeastern on Feb. 9. Ironically enough, the last Tribe player to pull down 10-plus rebounds was Corey Cofield, who had 11 boards at Northeastern on Feb. 2, 2006. The 11 rebounds by Stein bettered his career-high of nine set earlier this season at Drexel. The Houston, Texas native currently leads the Tribe in rebounding at 4.7 per game. He has topped the College on the glass in nine games this season, including four of the last six contests. He is averaging 5.2 rebounds per game in CAA play.

Conference Wins
Through the opening 14 games of the CAA schedule, the Tribe has already amassed nine league wins. The nine wins equal the second-most for a W&M team since joining the CAA in 1982-83. Prior to the 1985-86 season, the league was known as the ECAC South. The Tribe won nine games in 1982-83 (9-0) and 1984-85 (9-5) prior to winning a program-best 13 league games in 1997-98.

The 2007-08 version of Tribe basketball can join some elite company with its next league win. In the program’s 71-year affiliation with a conference, only seven W&M teams have won 10 or more league games. It occurred six times as a member of the Southern Conference (1948-49 [10], 1949-50 [12], 1950-51 [13], 1951-52 [10], 1959-60 [10] and 1962-63 [10]) and only once as a member of the CAA (1997-98 [13]). W&M was a member of the Southern Conference from 1936-77, before joining the ECAC South from 1977-85. The Tribe was a charter member of the CAA and has been with the league since 1985.

Protecting the Leather
The Tribe has done a remarkable job of protecting the basketball recently, turning the ball over only 8.5 times per game over the last four contest. The Tribe totaled a minuscule 13 turnovers in games against UNCW on Feb. 2 and Hofstra on Feb. 6. W&M turned the ball over five times in the victory over UNCW, before limiting itself to just eight turnovers against Hofstra. It marked the first time since the 2002-03 season that the Tribe turned the ball over fewer than eight times in back-to-back games. In its most recent game at UNCW, the College again only committed five turnovers.

The last time W&M had back-to-back games of fewer than eight turnovers was Feb. 8 and Feb. 12, 2003. The College turned the ball over eight times in a 79-69 victory at Hofstra, before registering only six miscues at Towson in a 59-52 win. The five-turnover performance against UNC Wilmington was the best for the College under head coach Tony Shaver and the lowest number since it had four at James Madison on Jan. 29, 2003.

Equally as important has been W&M’s ability to force turnovers and turn them into points. The Tribe forced 16 UNCW turnovers on Feb. 2 and held a 24-6 advantage in points off turnovers. In its most recent win over Hofstra, the Green and Gold forced 18 Pride turnovers and turned it into a 19-6 advantage on points off turnovers. In fact, the Tribe is 8-2 this season when holding the advantage in the points off turnovers category.

W&M’s ability to limit its turnovers has been a telling stat to the Tribe’s success. In victories, the Tribe is only turning the ball over 13.4 times compared to 14.5 in losses. The Tribe has a positive turnovers margin of 2.0 in victories compared to a -1.4 turnover margin in losses.

Finding the Open Man
The Tribe understands the importance of the extra pass, and the College’s offensive scheme relies heavily on reading teammates, while making intelligent passes. W&M has ranked among the CAA leaders in assists for most of the season and currently is fifth averaging 13.7 helpers per game. In each of the last two victories, W&M has dished out 20-plus assists in victories over UNCW and Hofstra.

The back-to-back 20-plus assist effort marks the first time it has happened since head coach Tony Shaver’s first season at the helm. During the 2003-04 campaign, W&M had three straight 20-plus assist performances against Hofstra (20) on Jan. 24, 2004, Old Dominion (22) on Jan. 26, 2004 and James Madison (20) on Jan. 28, 2004. Against UNCW on Feb. 2, the Tribe dished out 20 assists, before handing out 21 dimes in the victory over Hofstra on Feb. 6. The 20-assist contests were the 12th and 13th times under Shaver that the Tribe accomplished the feat. The Tribe is 10-3 in those contests.

More impressive than the Tribe’s back-to-back assist efforts is that the 41 total assists came on 50 made field attempts. In the win over UNCW, sophomore David Schneider handed out six assists to lead the Tribe. Senior Laimis Kisielius led the Tribe with a career-high seven assists against Hofstra, while Schneider dropped six dimes for the second straight game.

Balanced Scoring
While the Tribe is enjoying success during the 2007-08 season, the College has done so without a marquee scorer further promoting the team dynamic behind the Green and Gold’s impressive play. No W&M player ranks among the top 20 in the CAA in scoring, but three players currently average in double figures with another not far behind.

Senior Laimis Kisielius leads the Tribe in scoring at 11.4 points per game followed by sophomore David Schneider at 10.7 and senior Nathan Mann at 10.3 points per game. The trio of double digit scorers marks the first time since head coach Tony Shaver’s first season that three Tribe players have averaged in double figures. During the 2003-04 season Adam Hess (20.3), Corey Cofield (13.2) and Zeb Cope (12.0) averaged in double digits.

Sophomore Danny Sumner is the Tribe’s fourth leading scorer at 9.8 points per game just shy of the double-digit barrier. The last time four W&M players averaged in double digits was during the 1995-96 campaign. During that season, Carl Parker led the way at 15.2 followed Bobby Fitzgibbons (12.3), David Cully (11.5) and Matt Verkey (10.9).