Todd Townsend

[TJ]

It's the offseason and quiet, so I'd like to ask...

What the heck happened to T-squared over his 4 years at MU?  Starter as a freshman on a Final Four team, and then the PT continually lessened over then next 3 years to the point where he barely got in games at all by his senior year.  He couldn't have "fallen from grace" that far because he immediately got hired on to the staff after graduation, so what gives?  Talent decline?  Undisclosed injuries?  Players recruited ahead of him?  Something else?

Anyone in the know?  Anyone have any wild speculations?

[reinko]

Too many missed tomahawk dunks

[bilsu]

He did hurt his shoulder.Slight separation I believe.

[MR.HAYWARD]

Todd was simply never that good of a player.  A really good athlete but his skills, ie ballhandling, passing , and shooting were simply not very good.  he played some defense and did not make too many mistakes allowing himself to not hurt the team and be the 5th man on a very shallow depth wise team. 

[TJ]

I have to correct myself - he started on the Final Four team as a sophomore.

[Pakuni]

Steve Novak happened to Todd Townsend.

[Nukem2]

Steve Novak happened to Todd Townsend.

Also, Todd's 3-point shooting went down as well as his confidence.  A hard worker, but it all went downhill after his frosh season.  Of course, having Dwade and RJaz in the lineup helped a bit.

[DomJamesToTheBasket]

He was agressive on offense 4.35% of the time. 95.65% of the time he was passive.

link: www.ncaa-stats.com/contrived

[avid1010]

He was agressive on offense 4.35% of the time. 95.65% of the time he was passive.

link: www.ncaa-stats.com/contrived

He was a very passive player.  I always think about guys like Todd, who have all the athletic ability in the world, but you RARELY saw him put the ball on the floor and go up for a strong dunk.  I can't imagine there is anything more frustrating than to coach a player with all the ability in the world, and you just can't get him to be aggressive.

[MR.HAYWARD]

i dont think Todd was simply "unaggressive".  typically an "unagressive" player is that way becuase he lacks confidence, in Todd's case his lack of confidence was warranted he was a very unskilled player, he lacked the handle or quickness to beat people off the bounce and he did not shoot the ball very well at all. Hard to be too aggressive or have great confidence in you ability to beat people with that skill set.  Todd was a good HS player becuase of his size and athleticism but never had the skill set to be a good college player at the high major level

[77ncaachamps]

Todd was a great team player, but never seemed to take over games.

Probably because he knew he couldn't. 

[Coleman]

No offense to Todd....but you could put any D-1 caliber guy in there as the 5th starter and that was a Final Four team

[CAINMUTINY]

None the less a great PR guy; if you ever met or hung out with TT, rest assured you came away liking the guy. 

[MU gimp ONE]

what happened to TT?  2 words to describe what happened... Tom Crean.  as soon as crean started to play around with Todd's time on the court it messed up TT's confidence.  Then it came to, Todd would get in, miss a shot, and crean would pull him right away.  many will disagree with me, but i blame crean for the majority of townsends disappearling act. 

I will 2nd that Todd was an awesome PR guy and a great teammate.  i worked the front desk in the dorms and Todd used give hilarious tours for incoming students.  not to mention, my junior year he was the only player on the team that could dunk and get some energy in the BC. 

[dsfire]

i dont think Todd was simply "unaggressive".  typically an "unagressive" player is that way becuase he lacks confidence, in Todd's case his lack of confidence was warranted he was a very unskilled player, he lacked the handle or quickness to beat people off the bounce and he did not shoot the ball very well at all. Hard to be too aggressive or have great confidence in you ability to beat people with that skill set.  Todd was a good HS player becuase of his size and athleticism but never had the skill set to be a good college player at the high major level

I don't agree with that - there were times where Townsend would slash to the hoop and make a play that would have you pick your jaw up off the floor.  The majority of the time, though, he'd sit on the wing, consider taking a shot when the ball was passed to him, and then pass it back to Diener.  Sometimes he'd pass up an open three to dribble in a couple steps and take a contested long two.  I think he just never quite figured out how he fully fit into the offensive gameplan.  A more consistent three-point shot would've gone a long way (dropped from 38% his first two years to 23% his last two).

[MR.HAYWARD]

I don't agree with that - there were times where Townsend would slash to the hoop and make a play that would have you pick your jaw up off the floor.  The majority of the time, though, he'd sit on the wing, consider taking a shot when the ball was passed to him, and then pass it back to Diener.  Sometimes he'd pass up an open three to dribble in a couple steps and take a contested long two.  I think he just never quite figured out how he fully fit into the offensive gameplan.  A more consistent three-point shot would've gone a long way (dropped from 38% his first two years to 23% his last two).

see that is where you miss the boat...do you think something physically happened to cause him to drop 15% on his shooting percentage, like a bad elbow or something?  no of course not based simply on repitions and all else being the same it should have gone up a little or a least stayed the same.  but just as we saw with jerel and wes with out DJ shooting percentages suffer.  Did Jerel and Wes hurt there elbows at the same moment that DJ got hurt of course not.  todd could hit the wide open three when defenses focused on Wade and RJ and had to respect Novak and Diener, leaving TT on the wing for the WIDEopen kick out or the Wide open driving lane.  But a few years later when he had RJ replaced with mjax and Wade replaced with Chapman etc.  Now he no longer has that luxury so he is now guarded knecap to kneecap.  could he break his man down off the dribble?  absolutely not therefore the defense could guard him chest to chest with no fear of getting beat on the bounce...hence the drop in 3 point shooting percentage. 

For some of the older crowd the classic example is Trevor Powell, trevor back in 1988?  was one season away from obliterating the school scoring record after averaging maybe 17 points agme as a junior with one of the sweetest baseline jumpers in memory.  he was pure money with the 12 foor baseline j ( as was Damon Key a few years later)  nevertheless the math was done and all the experts were trying to pick the game in the senior year that trevor would break georges record,  similar to waht was being done with Dj and Jerel this year.  Low and behold Tony Smith graduated after Trevor's Junior year and trevor had to create for himself as the drives by a guy who scored 24 points a game and could get to the whole better than anyone in the last 25 years not named dwade was gone.  Gone were the drives that needed help defense openeing up the kick out to the wide open trevor on th baseline.  I think Trevor scored 11 or so points a agme as a Senior, his shhoting percentage had to go down big time just the same.  he lacked the ability to beat people he was Lazar Hayward type with out the ability to create his own shot.  Just like a todd Townsend.  All world players in HS tons more athletic than there peers but not quite good enough to creat for themselves at the high D1 level.  Great 4th or 5th men on a team but not good enought ot be the man.  i will try to find trevors junior and senior numbers 

[Guy Fieri's Dad]

I miss Todd that dude was hilarious.