Meyer on Morris Link

Moon Township, Pa. - The name of the event indicates a team could have a choice about whether it wants to participate.

It is, after all, called the National Invitation Tournament.

A team that receives an invitation to this get-together could theoretically say, "Uh, well, gee, thanks, but no thanks.''

At least two Robert Morris University Colonials late last Saturday seemed rather uninterested about playing in the NIT, an invitation to which the Colonials automatically received because they won the Northeast Conference regular-season championship.

"I haven't thought about it yet, to be honest with you,'' senior point guard Velton Jones said. "I just haven't thought about it.''

"I'm really not thinking about that right now,'' senior swing man Russell Johnson said. "I'm still upset about this loss.''

Understandably so.

The two seniors combined to shoot 4-of-24 from the field, including 0-for-8 from beyond the arc, scored only 10 points and had six turnovers in the Colonials' dysfunctional 69-60 loss to Mount St. Mary's in an NEC Tournament semifinal game at the Charles L. Sewall Center.

The defeat guaranteed the Colonials would not receive an invitation to the NCAA Tournament, which of course is the dance of choice in college basketball.

The Colonials faced the same situation five years ago when they gained the top seed in the NEC Tournament only to fall flat, also against Mount St. Mary's, at the Sewall Center in the conference tournament semifinals.

That team wasn't real excited about playing in the National Invitation Tournament, but it did go to Syracuse and almost pulled off a huge upset before losing, 87-81.

One suspects these Colonials, after some mindset adjusting, also will pick the NIT.

"I think we have a group of guys in the locker room who aren't going to want to have this be the way they're remembered,'' RMU coach Andrew Toole said a few minutes after his players spoke. "So hopefully whoever we draw (in the NIT) we'll come out and play close to our potential and we'll see what happens from there.''

Toole, who was an RMU assistant coach in that NIT March in 2008, knows, though, that it will be a hard sell to get his team jacked up about playing in this NIT.

"More difficult than you know,'' he said. "It's difficult as a coach to prepare your own self, let alone your team, for something less than what your goal was, and it's going to take a couple days. It's going to take some deep breaths to be able to come back at some point during the week and get back in the gym and try and work. But if someone says we have the opportunity to continue to play, well, then we should go take advantage of it, and that's how we'll approach it when that time comes.''

This is the third consecutive season in which the Colonials found themselves with something less than what their goal was. But it's the first time in those three seasons that they fell short in a game at the Sewall Center, which made this defeat extra hard to handle in the immediate aftermath.

And equally difficult to discuss.

"They just made shots, and we didn't. That's about it,'' Jones said glumly and succinctly.

Well, yeah. But that's how it is in most games. One team makes more shots than the other and the team that makes more shots wins.

So it's often more enlightening to learn why one team made more shots than the other.

"They wanted to run us off the three-point line,'' said junior Anthony Myers-Pate, a Colonial bright spot who scored 15 points. "We just had to be patient. We got a couple of open looks and we forced them. That's what they wanted us to do. We played into their hands.''

Jamion Christian, the Mountaineers' first-year head coach, was mindful that in its previous five games Robert Morris had made 60-of-150 attempts from deep.

"They're such a dynamic offensive team,'' Christian said. "We didn't want to allow them to shoot comfortable threes.''

The Mountaineers succeeded in that regard. The Colonials, who led the NEC in three-point accuracy, made just 5-of-19 from beyond the arc. Subtract Myers-Pate's 3-for-3 three-point shooting, and the rest of the Colonials were only 2-of-16 from deep.

And that trouble from deep meant, well, deep trouble.

"It was our poor shot selection,'' Toole said. "They did a great job of pressuring the ball. They made it difficult at times for us to get the ball to the wing, and so we succumbed to the pressure and took poor shots. When we reversed the basketball a little bit, when we would screen once in a while, we got good looks. We just didn't do that often enough because it was difficult.''

But while the Mountaineers emphasized making the Colonials shoot uncomfortable threes, they also emphasized permitting Jones to shoot from wherever.

"He's a great player,'' Christian said. "We wanted to limit his ability to make assists. We wanted him to beat us shooting and not allow him to (create). We wanted to make him shoot at least 10 shots because Robert Morris was 4-5 (this season) when he took at least 10 shots (in a game).''

Christian was spot-on there. The Colonials, now 23-10, were 4-5 before Saturday's game when Jones took 10 or more shots in a game. On the other hand, they were 14-5 when he had at least five assists in a game. Throw out the games in which Jones shot at least 10 times and also had at least five assists, and the Colonials were 10-1 when Jones just had at least five assists.

In Thursday night's 75-57 victory against St. Francis Brooklyn in the NEC quarterfinals, Jones attempted only four field goals but had eight assists.

On Saturday, Jones launched 17 field goal attempts, including six from deep. He made two and none, respectively. He had one assist - and four turnovers.

Clearly, it was not the way he wanted to go out in his last game in the Sewall Center.

"I just couldn't make a shot,'' Jones said.

One could suggest that Jones probably aggravated his sore right shoulder during a loose ball scramble two minutes into the game. He went to the bench but returned to action barely a minute later.

Jones also took a hard tumble when he crashed into Christian trying to control a steal with 12:56 left in the first half.

And he banged his shoulder hard into the floor while making a steal with 4:18 left in the game that jump-started the Colonials' furious late rally that trimmed the Mountaineers' lead from 16 points to six with 63 seconds remaining.

So Jones almost certainly was not OK physically during his final home game.

But he and his teammates also were not OK period in the Colonials' final home game this season.

"Not a great time to play one of your worst games of the season,'' Toole said. "Credit Mount St. Mary's. They were terrific in their plan and their approach and their execution of their plan. They beat us. They deserved to win the game. They played better. They were the team that stayed truer to their formula than we did.

"They speed you up. It's part of their formula. They want to speed you up and make you play maybe faster than you want to. And that certainly was true today. We played right into their hands. We played into their style and their system. I think over the course of time, the more you play their style versus our style, the better chance they have to win, and that's what happened.''

Toole had a hunch almost immediately that this game would not be a repeat of the St. Francis Brooklyn cruise.

"I think as soon as the ball went up, we were behind, to be honest with you,'' he said.

For sure, 15 seconds after the opening tip the Colonials were behind. Lucky Jones was late on a defensive pick-up, Rashad Whack popped in a trey and the Colonials trailed, 3-0.

"Unfortunately, I knew from that point on, it was going to be an uphill battle,'' Toole said. "I've seen our team 33 times this year, and you can tell right off the bat (what Colonial team) is going to be out there. So as soon as I saw that play develop and Lucky be a little bit late on it and (Whack) make a three, I said, 'OK, it's going to be one of those games where we're really going to have to grind,' and unfortunately we weren't able to grind enough.''

There was another bad omen for the Colonials with 2:25 left in the first half. They trailed, 26-21, but had a chance to narrow their gap when Velton Jones, a 77 percent free throw shooter, went to the chalk for two shots. He missed both.

Mount St. Mary's led, 29-23, at the break and easily held serve through the first six minutes of the second half.

However, the Colonials seemed to have a great opportunity to change their fortunes soon after.

Standout Mountaineer freshman Shivaughn Wiggins was on the bench with four fouls. Floor leader Julian Norfleet would follow Wiggins to the bench with 15:22 remaining in the game when he sprained his right ankle and left for the rest of the afternoon.

When Karvel Anderson made a layup with 14:07 left to cut the Colonial deficit to 36-29, the home crowd sensed this was the home team's opportunity.

However, backed by renewed energy from the fans, Robert Morris did not take advantage.

While the Mountaineer offense sputtered, the Colonials had three consecutive empty possessions. And with 12:24 left, Sam Prescott drained a three from the top of the circle, giving Mount St. Mary's a 39-29 lead.

"We took a couple shots from Monroeville, and it went from 36-29 to a double-digit lead,'' Toole said. "That's the beauty of the style that they play each and every game. I would sit there and watch and take notes and you could just see the run developing. You could see the style wearing on teams. You could see (the opposition) breaking down mentally and physically, and then they go on a run like they did. And they're jumping around. They're energized. We're walking back to our huddle like, 'What just happened?' In (the Mountaineers') nine-game winning streak, it's happened in every game.''

By the time the Colonials scored again, with 8:39 left, they trailed, 47-31.

Yes, the Colonials made that late run, but it was for naught.

Same with the 15-12 lead they laboriously crafted in the game's first eight and-a-half minutes.

"We got some opportunities early, some easy layups early, and it was fool's gold,'' Toole said. "We thought those things were going to be there every time, and they weren't. You put yourself in a big hole and give away possessions, and you don't defend very well, either. It seemed like as soon as we got down, everybody wanted to make a 25-point play. You can't do that. It's a possession by possession game. You're not going to run these guys off the court. You have to stay true to what you do. They did a great job of taking away our strengths, and we didn't do a very good job of counteracting that.''

TOURNEY TIDBITS: A tip of the Colonial cap to Pat Pierson and Florida Gulf Coast. The Eagles beat Mercer, 88-75, early Saturday afternoon to win the Atlantic Sun Conference championship and become the first team into the NCAA tournament. Pierson, Florida Gulf Coast's sports information director, is a Robert Morris graduate ... With at least one NIT game left, here's how Velton Jones and Russell Johnson rank on RMU's career lists ... Jones has 1,575 points, good for fifth place. Chaz McCrommon is fourth with 1,623 points ... Jones has 543 assists, second behind Forest Grant (555) ... Johnson has 1,178 points, which ranks 15th all-time. Andre Boyd is 14th with 1,204 points ... Johnson has 738 rebounds, third behind Anthony Dickens and Tony Lee, each of whom finished with 751 ... Mount St. Mary's will play at LIU Brooklyn Tuesday night in the NEC championship game. The Blackbirds advanced with a 94-82 win at Wagner Saturday. LIU Brooklyn broke from a slim 9-8 lead with 13:16 left in the first half to a 32-11 advantage with 5:48 remaining in the half. That, as they say, was pretty much it.