Time travel wasn’t invented in the 2010s, so there’s no firing up the DeLorean for either Towson or Hofstra to figure out a way to win the long-awaited first CAA title that eluded them this decade.

But despite the lack of a recent NCAA Tournament banner hanging at either SECU Arena or the Mack Sports Complex, a case could be made the league’s most notable program-building jobs this decade were overseen by the Tigers’ Pat Skerry and the Pride’s Joe Mihalich, whose teams will close out the ‘10s this afternoon in Towson.

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“No doubt about it, we both had an uphill battle,” Mihalich said.

Skerry and Mihalich, of course, were not the only CAA head coaches this decade to take over a program at its low point. Kevin Keatts became UNC Wilmington’s head coach after the Seahawks went 3-13 in league play in 2013-14. Earl Grant was named Charleston’s head coach in September 2014 after Doug Wojcik was fired following accusations he verbally abused players. Martin Inglesby and Zack Spiker took over at Delaware and Drexel after the Blue Hens and Dragons won three and two CAA games, respectively, in 2015-16.

But those four programs all had a base of recent success which made their situations feel less like a rock bottom for the new head coach. UNC Wilmington has a Power 5-esque fan following and won four CAA titles between 2000 and 2014, which tied the Seahawks for the most in the league with VCU. Charleston hadn’t made the NCAA Tournament since 1999 but enjoyed 10 20-win seasons over the subsequent 14 years. Delaware was just two years removed from an NCAA Tournament appearance when Inglesby arrived, while Drexel won 29 games and reached the NIT quarterfinals in 2011-12.

In other words, Drexel was winning almost as much that season as Towson was losing in Skerry’s first campaign. Skerry was not only replacing Pat Kennedy after a 2010-11 season in which the Tigers went 0-18 in CAA play, he was doing so with just one returning player — Erique Gumbs, who averaged 3.6 points per game in ’10-11.

Towson lost its first 19 games with Skerry at the helm to run its losing streak to 41 games, the longest skid in Division I history. The losing season was the 17th straight for the Tigers.

Hofstra’s drought was nowhere near that long — the then-Flying Dutchmen made back-to-back NCAA Tournaments out of he America East in 2000 and 2001 before making three straight NITs from 2005 through 2007 — but the Pride’s nadir had little to do with what happened on the court. Mihalich arrived in the spring of 2014 following a season in which six players were arrested. By the time Mihalich was hired, there were just four scholarship players remaining.

“I remember an assistant coach in the league saying to (Hofstra assistant) Mike Farrelly not to take the job because it’ll be five years before they can even become a .500 team,” Mihalich said. 

But Skerry had already proven it didn’t have to take that long to rebuild. Behind CAA player of the year Jerrelle Benimon, who’d sat out the 2011-12 season after transferring from Georgetown, Towson went from 1-31 in his first season to 18-13 in his second — the biggest single-season turnaround in Division I history. That began a six-season stretch in which the Tigers won at least 18 games five times. 

Mihalich oversaw a 10-win improvement in his second season, when transfers Juan’ya Green and Ameen Tanksley — each of whom played under Mihalich at Niagara — became eligible and led Hofstra to a 20-14 finish. The Pride has won at least 19 games in four of the last five seasons.

But while each program has proven adept at managing the marathon of the regular season, neither Hofstra nor Towson has been able to cross the finish line in the sprint that is the CAA Tournament. 

Towson was banned from the CAA Tournament in 2013 due to previous APR issues. In retrospect, that was probably the best chance to win it all for the Tigers, who ended the season on an 8-1 tear — the only loss was to eventual tourney champ James Madison — and finished the year 9-4 against the seven teams that were eligible for the tournament.

“I would have liked to have played that year,” Skerry said. “It wasn’t meant to be.”

Towson was no worse than a co-favorite to win the tournament in 2014, when it was the unofficial home team at Baltimore’s Royal Farms Arena. But the Tigers fell to William & Mary, 75-71, in the semifinals.

Two years later, third-seeded Towson was upset by sixth-seeded Northeastern, 71-60, in the quarterfinals. The Tigers earned the three seed again in 2017, but their championship hopes disappeared when star forward John Davis was injured in a drive-by shooting Feb. 11. Towson was in the midst of a 10-1 stretch when Davis was shot but lost three of its last four games.

“I haven’t finished the job that I was hired to do,” Skerry said. “But you’ve got to have some luck. Like Hofstra didn’t have some good luck late last year. They were the better team than Wilmington a couple years ago and just didn’t play great the last 10 minutes.”

Hofstra led the CAA wire-to-wire last season but fell to Northeastern, 82-74, in the championship game. In 2016, the Pride squandered a 12-point second half lead and fell to UNC Wilmington, 80-73, in overtime.

As with Towson, Hofstra has a what-if that could have led to an entirely different perception of the decade. Who knows what happens in 2015 if the Pride hangs on to a nine-point lead down the stretch in the tournament semifinals against William & Mary and Daniel Dixon doesn’t hit a 3-pointer with a second left in double overtime to lift the Tribe to a 92-91 win?

While Mihalich is as consumed as Skerry with getting his program to the NCAA Tournament, he’s not so sure falling short of the big dance qualifies as failing to complete the job, especially given where Towson and Hofstra were in the early days of this decade.

“I usually agree with Pat, but I don’t know — I think Pat and myself and the other eight coaches in our league, we were all hired to do this: Give your team a chance to win the league, make your program respectable and make your program relevant and make your university proud of you,” Mihalich said. “And (get) the sense that every year, come March, as you’re heading down the stretch, you feel like you’re going to have a chance. And I think Pat’s done that. I feel like we’ve done that. 

“We talk about championships. When I first got here, we were talking about putting a roster together. Now, for the last six years, we talk about championships. I think that’s what we’re hired to do: Talk about championships.”