Moon Township, Pa. - You won't find this on your list of official Robert Morris University promotions, but that doesn't mean something special won't happen at the Charles L. Sewall Center Saturday night.

"I think it's unique, you know,'' RMU coach Andrew Toole said.

Call it the unofficial Northeast Conference Head Coaches Reunion, which will be held before, during and after the Colonials play Duquesne in the annual Non-City Game.

Toole will occupy one bench. On the other will be Duquesne coach Jim Ferry and Dukes associate head coach Brian Nash.

"They know their way to the Sewall Center pretty well,'' Toole said.

Indeed.

Nash was the head coach at St. Francis (N.Y.) from 2005-10. Ferry was named the Dukes' head coach last April not long after guiding LIU Brooklyn to its second consecutive NEC Tournament championship.

"Coach Ferry recruited me out of high school to Bentley College, so we've crossed paths numerous times,'' Toole said. "I have a ton of respect for what he does. It makes it interesting that you compete against a guy in your league for championships and then he's right down the block. I also think that's what is great about sports. When he got the job at Duquesne, I reached out to him and said how happy I was for him and if I could ever help him at all here in Pittsburgh that I'd love to do that. That's just because of the respect I have for what he does and how he goes about running a program.''

Ferry's Blackbirds won NEC Tournament championships in his final two seasons at LIU Brooklyn, beating the Colonials both times, after Robert Morris won back-to-back NEC championships in 2009 and 2010.

"I think he did a terrific job at Long Island,'' Toole said. "I thought he really, really built a team that competed each and every night -- a really talented team -- and I think he put together a plan that really was able to accentuate their talents and their abilities. I thought they played a style that was perfectly suited for their personnel, and I think that was a decision that a coach makes and he believed in it and he got those guys to believe in it and I thought he did an outstanding job.''

The coaches aren't the only people who will know each other well Saturday night. The players are well acquainted, too.

For another thing, the players do see each other off the court.

"They see each other out socially at times,'' Toole noted. "I think they have some relationships that add a little bit of juice to it.''

And for a third thing, these teams play against each other each season when it counts in a series that's been highly competitive recently.

"I think there's been enough competition on both sides - wins and losses - to really make it a rivalry,'' Toole said. "I think it's hard to have a rivalry when one team never beats the other. I don't think geography is always the greatest indicator of rivalries, but when Robert Morris and Duquesne have gotten together, over the five times I've been involved, the games have always been surrounded by a good atmosphere. And I think for the most part they've been good games.''

A brief refresher in that regard ...

In 2007-08, Toole was an assistant to former RMU head coach Mike Rice. The Colonials led, 51-49, with 12:55 left at Duquesne, but the Dukes won going away, 86-70.

The next season, the Dukes shot 58.1 percent from the field at the Sewall Center and crushed the Colonials, 88-62.

In 2009-10, Rice's final season at RMU, the Colonials led, 54-53, with 1:57 remaining at Duquesne but didn't score again and lost, 59-54.

Two seasons ago, Toole's first as RMU's head coach, the host Colonials staged a 13-5 run over the final five and-a-half minutes and beat the Dukes, 69-63.

Then last season at Duquesne, the Colonials rallied again to win, 64-60. RMU trailed, 56-51, with four and-a-half minutes left but used a 13-4 run to post its first victory at the Palumbo Center since 1990.

That win also gave the Colonials their first back-to-back triumphs against the Dukes since 1983 and 1984.

So the way the games have played out recently qualify this as a rivalry.

"I think there's a little more excitement from the people that surround the game,'' Toole said. "Whether it's crowd support, whether it's people on Duquesne's campus who went to school with kids on Robert Morris' campus or alumni or media, I think (there are other factors) that lets the players know that it's more than just the next game on your schedule."

That definitely makes the Non-City Game a rivalry.

"I think it is,'' Toole said. "I think our guys think it is. I think the Duquesne guys think it is. The game's always been one that I believe both teams are excited to play.''

"We look at it as a rivalry because we feel like people look at us as just little old Robert Morris and we don't look at it like that,'' Jones said. "We look at it like we have something to prove, that we're not just little old Robert Morris.''

This will be the first Robert Morris/Duquesne game for Colonial newcomer Vaughn Morgan, a junior college transfer who went to high school at Pittsburgh's Perry Traditional Academy and who said he drew some recruiting interest from former Duquesne coach Ron Everhart.

"The new coaches really don't know me, so I could show them what Pittsburgh has to offer, but I don't really have anything to prove,'' Morgan said. "I'll be a little hyped to get to play another team from the area. It's a big game for me, but it's really bigger for the team because we need the win to make our record even better. Beating an Atlantic 10 team would be a good thing for us.''

The Colonials (6-4) will try to add to their three-game winning streak and also will look to get Jones on track. In his previous four games, Jones has scored only 31 points and was 5-for-31 from the field, including 2-of-11 from beyond the arc.

As usual, though, Jones did help offensively. He had 23 assists in those four games, including five during an effective surge in the Colonials' 66-54 victory at Hampton last Saturday.

"Velton had a two and-a-half minute stretch where he got really good looks for three or four guys and allowed us to build our lead,'' Toole said.

The shooting woes?

"Velton and I have been discussing this a little bit,'' Toole said. "I'm not sure there's a particular reason. I think one of the things that happens with Velton, and this is a hypothesis, it's not a theory yet, but I think that sometimes he's inconsistent in his shooting because he doesn't always prepare himself to shoot. So during the course of a game, like Saturday's game, he passed up a couple really good shots that I think he could have shot in rhythm and had a really good chance of going in and took some more difficult ones that had less of a chance of going in.

"We talked about that. We talked about taking what the game gives you. I think sometimes he gets frustrated because he is someone who teams try to stop. I think if he continues to get everyone else involved that ultimately will get him involved. And then always getting into the gym and really working on that skill of shooting. Of all the skills in the game of basketball, I think shooting's the most fragile because it's a lot about rhythm, it's a lot about repetition, it's a lot about being consistent in your form.

"If you don't do those things, you're not going to shoot a high percentage.''

Jones seems to agree.

"I have to keep working and get in the gym,'' he said a few days ago. "You just have to keep getting extra shots up and they'll fall (again). But the thing is to win. As long as we're playing well, then (scoring) doesn't matter to me.''