TOWSON, Md. - It's the little things that win basketball games ... and lose them.

Many times in close basketball games, free throw shooting becomes key. Unfortunately for the Tigers on Saturday night at the Towson Center, they struggled badly at the foul line, shooting just 32% from the foul line (8-of-25) during a 62-58 loss to UMBC.

The Tigers shot well below their average at the line coming into the UMBC game, shooting just 58% (now 54%). It's pretty easy to pick on a team that is off to an 0-9 start, but when you are 335th nationally in free throw shooting (before Saturday's game) and 333rd in field goal shooting (37%), stats really don't lie.

For freshman Deon Jones, missing free throws was not habit-forming in his first eight games. He was shooting 81.3 per cent from the charity stripe with just three missed foul shots in 16 attempts. But, on Saturday night, the Wilmington, Del. native struggled with the rest of his teammates by going 3-of-8 from the line, which put a damper on his first career "double double" of 12 points and 10 rebounds.

"Going to the line, I usually knock it down," said Jones. "I got up there and it just wasn't falling for me and a lot of other guys. Maybe we weren't focused enough on the line. We practice free throws a lot. We should be a pretty good free throw shooting team. It just wasn't our night from the line."

Towson obviously had a chance to win the game on Saturday night and the closest previous margin of defeat had been 12 points (to UNC Greensboro and George Mason), so this game was the one where you could put under the microscope and wonder what if?

Let's face it. We can go over the losses in the offseason, but they have hurt the team big time. Not having an experienced point guard and shooting guard has been devastating to this team early on.

But, the two biggest losses from last year's team were not due to graduation. Isaiah Philmore (15.3 ppg, 79% FT, 49% FG) transferred to Xavier and Braxton Dupree (12 ppg, 70% F%, 48% FG) left school early to pursue a professional career. That left Towson without some major offensive firepower and Coach Pat Skerry is realistic about what his team's strengths and weaknesses are.

"We were not very good from the foul line," Skerry said. "We have the ability to be not very good from the foul line unfortunately. The thing that disturbs me the most is we are not a good shooting team from the perimeter and we took 20 of our 63 shots from the three-point line. That's something we drill on every day - working against zone and getting inside touches. We had poor shot selection. We knew they were going to play zone and we are not a good three-point shooting team. People play zone because we want you to shoot the ball and we did. That's third-grade stuff."

Skerry wants to see sophomore Marcus Damas get to the foul line more. He struggled against the zone on Saturday night, making 4 of 14 shots from the field, including 1 of 5 from beyond the arc. But, when he got to the line, Damas made a credible four of six shots (normally makes 67%).

But, while Skerry wants to get the ball inside to his frontcourt players, when his three major post guys get fouled, they aren't making their foul shots. Robert Nwankwo could be averaging in the mid-teens if he can make 70% of his foul shots. Unfortunately, the senior, who was 0-for-4 from the line on Saturday night, has made just 40% (21 of 52) of his free throws this year.

Nwankwo ranks second on the team by averaging 11.4 points per game while leading the team with a 9.1 rebounding average and 15 blocks.

Freshman Jervon Pressley, who was one-for-six against UMBC from the foul line, is now shooting 7 of 14 from the line (50%) for the season. He was averaging 75% before the game Saturday night. Sophomore Erique Gumbs is shooting 12 of 23 (52.2%) from the charity stripe, which is now the best of the top three post players.
 
It's the little things that lead to wins. Towson played well enough to beat UMBC on Saturday night. The Tigers grabbed 25 offensive rebounds, which showed some hustle and forced 19 turnovers. Defensively, the Tigers played extremely well, holding UMBC to just 36% from the field.

The difference? UMBC shot 20 of 26 from the line (77%) and made 6 of 15 three-pointers while Towson made 4 of 20 from beyond the arc.

The Tigers will look to improve their free throw shooting and get the ball in the paint against Coppin State on Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m. on the road.