In road contests against Towson and Toledo the men's basketball team was treated with big time offensive efforts by freshmen Shawn Grant and Brian Neller. Against Towson Grant led all scorers with 28 points and against Toledo, Neller matched his season total in made three-pointers with five in a team high 15 point game. But despite those two stepping up to give UMBC an offensive boost, the defense continued to struggle and the men's basketball team lost their seventh straight game to start the season.

With the hopes of getting their first win of the season in what Towson coach Pat Kennedy called a "neighborhood game," UMBC traveled 30 minutes north on I-95 to take on Colonial Athletic Conference foe Towson. While Towson never lost the lead in that game and held a double-digit lead nine times, they never quite got a knock out shot against UMBC as the game went down to the final possession.

Down by three points with 14 seconds to go, UMBC had the ball but sophomore guard Chris De La Rosa bounced the ball off his foot, lost possession, and with one second left Tiger center Robert Nwankwo dunked the ball as UMBC lost 82-77.

Despite a great offensive showing by UMBC in which four Retrievers scored in double-digits, the defense allowed Towson to shoot 45.5% from the field and hit 11 three-pointers in the game.

Grant led the team with a career high 28 points off 10 field goals, four of which came from three-point range. He also grabbed five rebounds and stole two balls.

"He's certainly capable of doing that," coach Randy Monroe said. "Shawn's strength is his offense. He's a very, very good basketball player and I think he has tremendous talent and he's confident. He has the green light to shoot the basketball because he's shown that ever since he's been here."

While Chauncey Gilliam (13 points, three rebounds, three assists), Adrian Satchell (11 points, four rebounds), Chris De La Rosa (10 points, seven assists, five rebounds) and Robbie Jackson (seven points, 10 rebounds) all had solid outings to help out Grant in their best offensive effort of the season, the defense gave up their second most points of the season.

"I didn't think from my team's stand point there was a lot of defense being played," Monroe said. "I'm very disappointed with the way our team defended tonight, very, very disappointed. I thought our rotations were not very good, pressure on the basketball was not very good, [and] we gave up second effort shots."

A season ago the Tigers got the upper hand on UMBC by sinking 14 threes. This time UMBC gave up 11 threes, allowed Towson to shoot 45.5% from the field and 50.0% from three-point range.

"We didn't get back in transition, not knowing where the basketball is, those are the things that we've worked on since October 15," Monroe said. "I can understand you miscuing on some offensive set because you're still learning but I can't understand why you can't get back on defense, why you can't block out, those are fundamental things that should not change."

Three days later UMBC made a long road trip to Toledo, once again in hopes of winning their first game of the season. While Toledo went into the game without a win against a Division I team, UMBC certainly had a chance to get a win but fell into a bad situation early.

Just six minutes into the game Jackson was forced out of the game with an ankle injury. While he would return in the second half, his absence forced Jake Wasco and Adrian Satchell to take on the Rockets' biggest players on defense, which got them in foul trouble as each ended the game with four fouls a piece.

Though Jackson did return in the second half, he played just four minutes before being taken out of the game for good, which gave Toledo the size advantage as without Jackson and with Wasco and Satchell in foul trouble, UMBC was forced to go five guards for the majority of the game.

Neller gave UMBC a good performance off the bench as he finally settled down and hit five threes for a team high 15 points. He was joined by four other Retrievers with double-digit scoring as Gilliam (13), Grant (12), Spadafora (10) and De La Rosa (10) all did their parts, but their lack of size caused UMBC to be out-rebounded 40-28 and forced the offense to the outside, allowing them to only go to the line 13 times, which they did not capitalize on anyway as they went just 6-13 (61.5%)

De La Rosa though did show a lot of improvement at the point guard spot as he made much better shot decisions, going 3-5 from the field, dished out seven assists and gave up just one turnover.

The defense however gave up 10 three-pointers and allowed Toledo to have a solid day of shooting (43.3% from the field and 47.1% from three point range) and the lack of size allowed the Rockets to move the ball inside, pick off fouls, and score with the clock stopped.

While UMBC is 0-7 and not playing well on the defensive end, the offense has been fairly impressive, especially since the available players consist of four freshman, three sophomores, two juniors, and one senior. Both freshman Jamar Wertz and senior Justin Fry have yet to see the court this year with knee injuries.

Come January the team is expected to get both players back on the court. With Fry the team should certainly see an improvement on the defensive end as he is one of the top defenders on the team and should provide UMBC with a lot of experience as he has started every season he's been at UMBC. In Wertz the team adds another offensive option. But until those two are available the team has to learn how to win with what they have. They have six more non-conference games to get things together before the season ahead is only those ever important conference games.