Towson women welcome pressure to repeat in CAA

The chip has not changed for Nukiya Mayo.

Nearly a year removed since the Towson women’s basketball team was voted to finish eighth in the Colonial Athletic Association’s preseason poll, the Tigers clapped back at their doubters by capturing the league championship and advancing to the NCAA tournament for the first time in program history. This year’s preseason poll has not been released, but Mayo, a senior guard-forward, is already bracing for a certain amount of disrespect.

“We have a chip on our shoulders,” she said Tuesday afternoon at the Baltimore Basketball Media Day at Coppin State’s Physical Education Complex. “So it doesn’t really put a lot of pressure on us. We’re going to come and play like who we are. Nothing’s going to change that.”

Towson (20-13 in 2018-19) graduated only one starter in center Maia Lee and lost only two of its top six scorers. But coach Diane Richardson added seven newcomers to the roster to fortify the team’s depth and alleviate some of the burden on starters such as Mayo, redshirt senior guard Qierra Murray (Milford Mill) and redshirt junior guard Kionna Jeter.

“I told Nukiya and Q. Murray and those players, ‘Listen, I’m going to go out and get you some help. You’re not going to play 35 minutes a game.’ And we did that,” she said. “And I see that we’ve got more depth and we’ve got more skill, and I think we can make runs.” coaching debut a year ago when he inherited a squad that had only two players that averaged double-digit minutes in playing time.

Engelstad said the biggest difference has shown up during practices when the coaches are running players through certain drills.

“Last season, we just had to repeat ourselves over and over again, and as coaches, that’s tough to do when you’re trying to implement and you’re trying to advance at the pace that you need to advance to play high-level competition,” he said. “So for us, we were doing a lot of that on the fly. There was a lot of head scratching at times, and it was tough. You’d watch the film, and you’d be like, ‘Are we getting and grasping this?’ Now it’s to the point where when they make a mistake, they know that they’ve made it already and they can kind of correct themselves.”

Terp vs. Terp

The home-and-home series between Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference archrivals Coppin State and Morgan State already figures to be circled on calendars on both sides. But the games on Jan. 25 at Coppin State and Feb. 29 at Morgan State might be noteworthy for Maryland fans because of the coaches.

The Bears’ Kevin Broadus, a former Terps assistant coach, succeeded Todd Bozeman in the offseason. On the opposing sideline will be former Maryland standout shooting guard Juan Dixon in his third season with the Eagles.

Broadus acknowledged having mixed feelings about facing Dixon.

“It’s going to be strange before the tipoff, but once we get going, it’s basketball,” he said. “We’re going to try to beat him just like he’s going to going to try to beat us.”

Dixon returned the favor, saying: “He’s going to focus on his guys, and I’m going to focus on our guys. We’re going to be out there coaching our hardest.”