Meyer on Morris Link
Moon Township, Pa. – Nov. 17, 2013 – It's been almost eight months to the day since it happened.
Almost eight months to the day since
Robert Morris University rocked the college basketball world, shocked Wildcat Nation, docked Kentucky's season and knocked off the Wildcats, 59-57, at the chocked-full Charles L. Sewall Center.
It was the most significant victory in RMU's history and arguably the biggest by any Northeast Conference team.
When the game ended, many of the fans who yelled and hollered and cheered and willed their team to the win stormed the court in utter jubilation.
Robert Morris had done it.
You'll no doubt relive many of those delirious moments tonight when the Colonials play Kentucky at famed Rupp Arena. The game will be televised on ESPN2, and there's little question the network will show replays of key parts of that game.
Remember?
The Colonials got out to a 10-0 lead in the first 4:18, sending their partisans in the crowd of 3,444 to even greater heights of mania.
Kentucky regrouped and trailed just, 28-27, at halftime. But in the second half, the Colonials continued to strengthen their supporters' belief that "Yes, this can happen!'' by building leads of 40-31 (13:59 left), 42-32 (12:00), 49-36 (8:54) and 53-42 (6:32).
However, the Wildcats threw a dose of reality on the RMU fans by eating away at their deficit. Eventually, Kentucky tied the score at 57 with 44 seconds remaining.
Thirty-two seconds later, it happened.
RMU's
Russell Johnson missed a layup on an in-bounds play, but
Mike McFadden grabbed the offensive rebound. He was fouled on his follow-up and then calmly made both free throws with 8.7 seconds left.
It was 59-57 -- the score everybody connected with Robert Morris will remember forever.
The drama wasn't quite finished. The Colonials couldn't breathe again until a three-pointer from UK's Kyle Wiltjers from the left elbow clanged off the rim just before the buzzer.
Pandemonium! Bedlam! Colonial-mania!
Kentucky coach John Calipari, a Moon Township native, could relate.
"If we'd have won at the buzzer,'' Calipari said a few minutes later, "it would have been a shame.''
Certainly would have been.
However, as people say, that was then. Sunday night is now.
The circumstances surrounding both teams are decidedly different.
"The only thing that's the same is the name on the front of the jerseys,'' RMU coach
Andrew Toole said.
Kentucky, which won the national championship in 2012, has restocked its NBA development team and is focused on winning the national championship again. The Wildcats won't finish 40-0 -- Michigan State quickly ended that dream Tuesday night in Chicago -- but they're loaded with young talent and anything short of a Final Four (at the very least) will shock Wildcat Nation yet again.
The Colonials, who won the NEC regular-season championship last season, also have a lot of young players and far from the bright lights focused on the Wildcats are diligently trying to form another championship team.
This season, the Kentucky game for Robert Morris is just another step in that process.
"I feel with all the games right now it's going to get us better prepared for the conference games,'' McFadden said before the Colonials embarked on their current trip that includes three games in six nights. "We like to win the non-conference games, but it's more having to be ready when the conference (begins in early January), so we want to use the non-conference games for preparation and to learn lessons whether it's lose or win. Hopefully, once conference games start, we'll have all the kinks out and we'll be playing our best basketball at that time.
"Every time we step on the court, we're going to do bad things and we're going to do good things. We always try to get better at the things we do.''
Toole seems to have recognized that with six newcomers this year he and the Colonials will be better served if he's more patient with his players early in the season.
"I have to be smart with the way I approach situations with our guys because a lot of them are new,'' he said. "I have to be more positive when I can be positive. I think that might be more beneficial for them. My first year (as head coach in 2010-11), we had one senior, one junior and the rest freshmen and sophomores. With those guys it was the same thing. You're coaching every single situation. You're putting guys in situations they haven't been in, whether it's late in the game or a close game. You've really got to teach and you've really got to explain over and over and over. When you get those veteran groups, at least in my short experience, sometimes as a coach it's more just making sure they're following the process properly. With these guys, it's making sure they're following the process, but you also have to show them how to follow the process.''
The upperclassmen can help in that regard, and they have. Toole mentioned that on the Thursday night before RMU's season opener Nov. 9 the senior players met with the newcomers about the scouting report on Savannah State.
"The seniors showed them how to do the scouting report,'' Toole said. "The new guys might have had a scouting report in high school, but it's nowhere near what we have, and it's nowhere near detailed. We're going to ask questions and we're going to quiz them on it so they'll know it. Those are new things for them. Our coaching staff, as well as our returning guys, have to help these guys along so they can progress as quickly as possible.''
Knowing -- or not knowing -- the scouting report can impact playing time. If a player has had the scouting report for a couple of days and still misses assignments on the court during practice, chances are he won't play much in the game.
"That tells us right there that maybe you're not as knowledgeable as you need to be about what we're trying to do,'' Toole said. "You can really tell after the second or third day the guys who understand what's going on. We sit down and grill them -- 'Give me a random key. Give me an offensive key. Give me a defensive key. Tell me about Player No. 11. What's his name? Statistics? Tendencies?' Things like that.''
As an aside to this, someone wondered which player in Toole's seven seasons at RMU (three as an assistant coach and now four as the head coach) was the best at knowing the scouting report.
"Jeremy Chappell would be No. 1,'' Toole said. "He was unbelievable knowing the scouting report. Velton (Jones) and Russell (Johnson) were incredible. On our current roster, I'd say Mike (McFadden's) probably No. 1 -- with Karvel (Anderson), Lucky (Jones) and (
Anthony Myers-Pate) kind of 1-A and 2. Mike really knows the scouting report inside and out. He has a high basketball IQ.''
During this trip to Easton, Pa., Ypsilanti, Mich., and Lexington, Ky., the Colonials have had plenty of time to study scouting reports. And, one would think, bond.
"They bond all the time,'' Toole said, smiling, before this trip started. "We get on a bus, they go to sleep. We get on a plane, they go to sleep. I don't know how much bonding is going on in their sleep. But we'll get to spend more time together. They seem to get along well.''
The Colonials also played well at Lafayette last Tuesday night in the first game of the trip.
RMU led, 40-39, at halftime but fell behind, 59-48, with 14 minutes remaining. However, led by Anderson, who scored 18 of his 21 points in the second half, the Colonials rallied and won, 90-81.
"A great victory. I was very proud of our effort,'' Toole said. "Everyone contributed again. We were staring down the barrel of a double-digit deficit, and they kept working and kept working.''
The 10 Colonials who played at Lafayette each played at least 15 minutes.
"We want to keep as many people fresh as we can,'' Toole said. "The new guys have to learn how to play when they're tired. They're still learning how to play when they're tired. The more guys we have competing and flying around, the better off we'll be.''
Of note in the Lafayette game was junior
David Appolon playing point guard for his 16 minutes on the floor. Appolon, who filled in for suspended freshman point guard
Kavon Stewart, scored 10 points, had five rebounds and dished two assists with no turnovers.
Two nights later, however, the Colonials could not overcome a double-digit deficit in the second half and lost at Eastern Michigan, 69-64.
Down 59-48 with 14 minutes left, Robert Morris again rallied and got within two points on a
Lucky Jones trey with 25 seconds remaining, 66-64, but EMU's Karrington Ward made two free throws six seconds later, and that was pretty much that.
The Colonials began the game building on momentum they'd achieved at Lafayette and led, 23-12, 12 minutes into the game. But they made only two of 12 field goal attempts the rest of the first half, trailed, 32-29, at the break and didn't get going again offensively in the second half until it was too late.
"We kind of got stagnant against their zone in the first half,'' Toole said. "We also couldn't keep them off the free throw line. That's where the game was lost.''
Eastern Michigan made 28-of-42 free throws, while the Colonials shot only 14 free throws and made nine.
"There was an opportunity to be had, and we didn't take advantage,'' Toole said. "Our mental approach was different than it was Tuesday night (at Lafayette). We'll have to figure that out. We're going to look at the tape and kick ourselves. We just didn't have enough guys do what we needed them to do.''
