Meyer on Morris Link 
 
Moon Township, Pa. – Nov. 21, 2013 – So I'm thinking a couple days ago about Robert Morris playing the University of Kentucky in Lexington last Sunday evening and that just down the pike from Lexington, Ky., is Louisville, Ky., home of the company that manufactures Louisville Slugger baseball bats.
 
That got me to thinking about how a hitter will swing two or three bats in the on-deck circle so that when he steps into the batter's box the one bat he gets to use will seem lighter and, thus, his swing will be quicker. Or he'll swing a leaded bat in the on-deck circle. Or put one of those mental doughnuts on his bat in the on-deck circle.
 
That, in turn, got me thinking about RMU's game against UT Arlington at the Charles L. Sewall Center tonight, their third in the Keightley Classic.
 
Taking nothing away from the UTA Mavericks, but they're not the UK Wildcats, who "struck out'' the Colonials, 87-49, last Sunday. So were the nationally-ranked Wildcats a "doughnut'' for the Colonials? Will they be more comfortable playing the Mavericks?
 
"I don't know,'' RMU coach Andrew Toole said. "I guess we'll see what happens Thursday. Their jerseys don't say 'Kentucky', but every game is dangerous, and every team is capable of beating us if we don't do all the things that we're supposed to do.''
 
Among "all the things'' to which Toole referred are lessons he hopes his team learned from playing at Kentucky.
 
"I would hope the experience humbles us a little bit,'' Toole said a couple days after the Colonials returned from Lexington. "Obviously we knew how talented and good a team Kentucky was, but I think we got overwhelmed a little bit by their athleticism and the atmosphere and didn't have the poise that was needed to be able to execute and compete.''
 
However, it did seem that Robert Morris was able to get many good shots against Kentucky.
 
"Part of being able to get those decent shots and part of being able to make those decent shots is being
 comfortable in the situation," Toole said. "When a guy shoots the ball five feet over the basket, he's not comfortable. When a guy shoots the ball four feet four feet short from eight feet, he's not comfortable. Some of the layups that we missed are because they make you go faster. You're more concerned about getting your shot blocked, and instead of trying to rush and go faster you need to have a little more poise and work for maybe an even more wide open shot.
 
"One of (Kentucky's) defensive strategies is to be able to make smaller guys or guys who aren't 7-foot go to the rim and finish on a 7-footer (Willie Cauley-Stein), and that's not a high percentage play. We were foolish enough to try to defy the odds. It was almost like we had four or five guys in the first half just put their head down and try and drive against their defender and a 7-footer rotating over and then not having the poise to be able to make the next pass so we can get an open, comfortable shot.
 
"Everyone has to realize who they are and how they can be successful. We try as much as we can as coaches to be objective in how we view our team and our players, and sometimes I really like that our guys aren't objective. They have high opinions of their ability. Sometimes that's what makes some of our guys good. At the same time, though, you have to understand that there's a point to that. We're down 8-1, had a decent look on a couple occasions and we get two travels and a bad shot with a group of experienced guys where you have to say, 'OK, look, we throw it to Mike (McFadden) and he tries to drive it on the first play down 8-1. Well, let's run through a play. Let's try and execute a set and see if we can get a good shot and make it 8-3 instead of turning into 10-1.'
 
"I think those are some of the things we have to learn and take away from this experience -- that sometimes when you're playing a really good team they'll take away Option 1 and Option 2 and you have to be smart enough and strong enough to get to Option 3 because eventually they're going to break down (defensively) at some point. You just have to keep working until they do. If you surrender first and rush a quick shot or don't finish a cut or don't execute, well, then they're going to have the advantage. That's why I'm so insistent on paying attention to the details. If you don't have a big bag of details, you're in trouble.''
 
The Kentucky game was the third straight game in which primary point guard Anthony Myers-Pate failed to make a field goal. Myers-Pate scored five points in the season-opening victory against Savannah State but scored only one point in the next three games. The senior who averaged 5.9 points per game last season was 0-for-8 from the field in those three games, including 0-for-7 from three-point range.
 
Is Myers-Pate's lack of scoring a concern for Toole?
 
"No,'' he said. "We know that Ant's going to put in all the time in the world that he needs to be able to get it right. I think part of it is he's thinking too much. He wants to make perfect plays. There aren't perfect plays. I just think he has to understand that the more involved he gets everybody else eventually he'll become involved. He has to take a deep breath. He has to relax. He has to play the way he plays. It's almost like he gets thinking too much, so he becomes almost paralyzed at times because he's thinking too much.
 
"There are other times where he's not thinking at all. We've got to try and find that happy medium of where's being aggressive  and attacking but also considering the situation -- whether it's time to score, what's going on in the game, who's hot, who's not, where's the mismatch, where's not and try to balance all that.''
 
The three road games last week featured some good play by junior Dave Appolon as the secondary point guard, and some not so good play by Appolon as the secondary point guard.
 
"We have high expectations for Dave,'' Toole said. "We've always had high expectations for Dave. Dave's biggest problem is his ability to be consistent. The Savannah State game, the Lafayette game, he was excellent. Eastern Michigan, he struggled a little bit. Kentucky, he struggled a little bit. I talked to him after the Eastern Michigan game. I said, 'Dave, we can't continue to guess who's going to show up on a day-to-day basis. We don't win the game at Lafayette if you don't play the way you played. We just don't.'''
 
Toole cited Appolon and junior Desjuan Newton for their contributions at Lafayette.
 
"(Dave) and Juanie were our two most positive players in the huddles,'' Toole said. "We're down 11 points, and those two guys are screaming and yelling and willing guys to keep playing and fighting. It was great. It was absolutely great. We don't win the game unless they do what they did. It doesn't even get to Karvel (Anderson) making shots (down the stretch) if those guys don't have the attitudes they had. Thursday (at Eastern Michigan), it was the exact opposite. I said, 'Dave, as a third-year player in this
program you have to be able to be consistent in your effort regardless if you're making shots or not.'
 
"When he plays hard, good things happen for him and good things happen for our team. When he thinks he doesn't have to play that hard anymore is when he's not as engaged as he should be. You saw the ebbs and flows of that in the first four games of the season.''
 
Junior Lucky Jones left the game at UK early in the second half with a hip injury, but he did return to the game.
 
"He got smacked on a screen and banged his hip pretty good,'' Toole said. "He did go back in, but then it was bothering him, and he came back out.''
 
It's likely Jones will be able to play against Texas-Arlington.
 
The Mavericks got their Rupp Arena experience Tuesday evening, losing 105-76 to slip to 2-3.
 
Texas-Arlington outrebounded the Wildcats in the first half and trailed just 42-33 at the break. However, Kentucky controlled the glass 29-13 in the second half and scored 63 points in the second 20 minutes.
 
"The first half, I thought we did a great job to be able to outrebound them,'' Maverick coach Scott Cross said. "It was definitely a positive for us. Of course, Kentucky responded well in the second half and absolutely mashed us on the boards.''
 
Brandon Edwards, a 6'6'' senior forward, led the Mavericks in Lexington with 24 points and 10 rebounds. Senior guard Reger Dowell added 20 points, the fifth consecutive game in which he scored at least 20 points.
 
Texas-Arlington has victories against Division III Howard Payne (111-64), a game Howard Payne counted as an exhibiton contest, and Samford (88-75). The Mavericks lost their season opener at Boise State, 116-87, and lost at home to Cleveland State, 83-73, in their first game in the Keightly Classic.
 
"They play fast,'' Toole said of the Mavericks. "They shoot a lot of three-pointers. They have hard-nosed, aggressive athletes. They push the ball down the floor. They do some good stuff. They have some maturity and some experience with some redshirt juniors and some senior starters and senior bench guys. They'll be experienced, so it will be a really good test.''
 
NOTES: Because Kentucky is the host for the round-robin Keightley Classic, it had the right to name the event. UK named it after the late Bill Keightley, who served as the Wildcats' men's basketball equipment manager for 48 years … During his post-game show after the Kentucky game, Chris Shovlin, the iconic play-by-play voice of the Colonials, mentioned that Cauley-Stein had 13 "yanks.''  That's an impactful alternative word for "rebounds.'' … Texas-Arlington was picked by Sun Belt Conference coaches to finish seventh in the league this season … Robert Morris finishes play in the Keightley Classic Saturday aternoon at Cleveland State. Viking guard Bryn Forbes has made 22 consecutive free throws dating to last season. The sophomore, who shot 80.4 percent  from the free throw line last season, is 20 for 20 this season, during which he's averaging 20 points per game … According to its website, Louisville Slugger in its 120 years in business has sold 100,000,000 bats … Coron Williams, who transferred from Robert Morris to Wake Forest after last season, got off to a rough start with the Demon Deacons. In his first two games, Williams was 3-for-15 from the field, including 0-for-7 from beyond the arc, and scored 12 points. In his next two games, however, Williams scored 18 points against Presbyterian and 14 against Jacksonville. Through four games, Williams has 44 points and is 10-for-28 from three-point land.