Meyer on Morris Link
Moon Township, Pa. – Nov. 26, 2013 – Robert Morris plays tonight at Buffalo, another in a seemingly constant stream of road games.
That alone makes this a tough game.
Then there's this.
"They're all tough, and until we start to grow and develop as a team, they're going to be tougher than they should be," head coach
Andrew Toole said.
Toole made that comment in the immediate aftermath of RMU's 87-74 loss at Cleveland State last Saturday afternoon, a result that exasperated the coach.
"We're frontrunners,'' Toole said. "We're up, 11-2, and we're ready to rock. Then (the Vikings) increase their intensity.''
Toole felt the Colonials didn't match that.
"In games where we score a lot of points and make a lot of shots, we've played well,'' Toole said. "The games where it's harder to score and more difficult is when we've folded up a little bit. That's disappointing to me as a coach, and you have to correct it in practice. We have to have some better practices."
It's no consolation to Toole, of course, but another Northeast Conference coach had a similar feeling Saturday.
Central Connecticut State coach Howie Dickenman was just as frustrated after his Blue Devils lost to Rider at home, 89-73.
"I think when things don't go well for us we don't react very well to adversity,'' Dickenman told the New Britain Herald. "When we're making baskets, our defense is pretty good, but when we go cold it's a mental letdown for each of the players.''
The Colonials definitely went cold at Cleveland State.
After building a 17-7 lead a tick over six minutes into the game, they went without a field goal for just over 11 minutes.
"When things get hard, we don't really want to accept that responsibility," Toole said. "We need to work on being more disciplined throughout the entire game.''
And creative.
"There's always something else you can do to try and help your team,'' Toole said. "We talk about it every day in practice.''
The Colonials, who slipped to 3-3 with the loss, were called for 28 personal fouls, which resulted in the Vikings making 34-of-44 free throw attempts.
All three numbers -- the 28 fouls and Cleveland State's free throw makes and attempts -- represent season highs.
Granted, the Colonials trailing in the final minutes caused some of the fouls and ensuing free throw attempts.
However …
"Some of the fouls were because we can't maintain discipline for a full possession or because we can't maintain discipline for multiple possessions,'' Toole said.
Robert Morris allowed at least 80 points for the fourth time in its six games. Last season, the Colonials -- in 35 games – allowed at least 80 points just twice, so there's work for RMU to do defensively.
Some of that work will center on closing out on three-point attempts.
"We just (don't) get into the ball enough,'' Toole said. "They close out because that's what the coach tells them to do instead of thinking about how we're going to stop this guy from shooting the ball. Some of (our) guys close out at times (because) that's their practice habit. Their practice habit is to close out like it's a drill instead of closing out and defending like your life depends upon it. When our desire as a group to be a good team and be good players matches our practice habits, then we have a chance to really improve.''
Toole is well aware that some of these early-seasons mistakes and tribulations can be attributed to the Colonials having six new players this season. Three are freshmen, three are junior college transfers.
"There are going to be times this year where we're going to have guys in situations they haven't been in before,'' he said. We're going to have to help them through it. We have some personnel who are learning how to be consistent. We have some 18- to 23-year-olds, six new guys who have never played Division I, and whether it's the best high school in the country or the best junior college in the country they've never been through this kind of grind. They've never been asked to come to practice every day and have to be held accountable for two hours. And so this is new.
"They've never had a week like last week where we had a game Saturday (against Savannah State), gave them the scouting report on Sunday, played on Tuesday (at Lafayette), gave them the scouting report Wednesday morning, played on Thursday (at Eastern Michigan), gave them the scouting report on Friday morning and played on Sunday (at Kentucky). By the time Saturday afternoon came at Kentucky they wanted no part of each other. (It was) like we've been around each other too much. We've been on the bus, been sitting at the same table. It's a lot. They're learning all these things.''
This week is pretty much the same.
The Colonials played last Thursday at home against Texas-Arlington, got on a bus Friday afternoon and traveled to Cleveland State, played Saturday, bussed home, practice Sunday and Monday and then bussed to Buffalo and will play there Tuesday evening. Oh, yeah, and then they'll go to Delaware for a Saturday game against the University of Delaware.
A grind for sure.
"It's hard to be consistent when for the first 18 years of your life you've been allowed to be completely inconsistent and just show up twice a week when it's game day versus showing up six days a week and being mentally engaged, physically engaged,'' Toole said. "You're trying to learn new systems and new information and new terminology. It's a completely different world for a lot of them. Even if they showed up to high school and junior college practices at 50 percent they were better than the guys they were playing against. Now you're getting called out and exposed and the coach yells at you and now you're head's spinning. So that's why we've struggled a little bit to have some consistency -- because we have a lot of guys who are figuring this out on the fly.''
There were a couple of brights spot for the Colonials at Cleveland State. Freshman Jeremiah Worthem scored 16 points and had five rebounds.
"We'd play him more minutes if he can handle it and if buys into practice,'' Toole said. "He makes good things happen on the floor. He can really, really help us.''
Junior
Charles Oliver made two of his four attempts from beyond the arc. He's 10-for-25 from international waters and averaging eight points a game.
"We brought him in to make some shots,'' Toole said. "He's done a very good job at that for us. The more urgent he becomes defensively, the more minutes he'll play. We talk to him about it every day.''
Senior
Karvel Anderson scored 14 points against the Vikings but demonstrated the fickle nature of shooting a basketball.
Against Texas-Arlington, he was 8-for-10 from deep shooting at the Charles L. Sewall Center circles. At Cleveland State, Anderson was 0-for-6 from three-point range.
UP NEXT: Buffalo, coached by former Duke All-American and former Wagner assistant coach Bobby Hurley, is 1-2 and hasn't played since Nov. 16 when it beat Division II West Virginia Wesleyan, 80-60, at home.
Hurley, in his first season at Buffalo, has watched some good play by senior forward Javon McCrae, who's averaging 21.3 points and 11 rebounds per game. McCrae had a 31-14 double in Buffalo's 92-81 loss at Niagara. The Bulls opened the season with an 82-58 loss at Texas A&M.
Buffalo, from the Mid-American Conference (MAC), is shooting just 25.8 percent (16-for-62) from three-point range and 67.9 percent from the free throw line.
