Moon Township, Pa. - Recalled after what's happened since, it seems like forever ago. Certainly doesn't seem, at least now, as if it were all that bad.
However, it definitely was not good then.
Yet on this first Tuesday in March, it was only two months ago to the day that the Robert Morris University Colonials found themselves foundering in a Northeast Conference race that had barely begun.
That it doesn't seem like such a big deal now indicates something.
"It shows how far we've come since then,'' RMU coach Andrew Toole said a few days ago. "People were scratching their heads and wondering, 'What's going on?'''
Now Colonial fans simply are shaking their heads, and smiling, about what's happened in the two months since their basketball team for the first time in its history lost its first two NEC games at home.
Now Colonial fans are preparing for the start of the NEC Tournament in which their team holds the top seed because of its 14-4 record that was the league's best in the regular season.
Now Colonial fans are building the buzz for a quarterfinal game Wednesday night against eighth-seeded St. Francis Brooklyn at the Charles L. Sewall Center.
But back on the night of Jan. 5, none of this seemed plausible.
On that night, the Colonials most definitely were not in first place.
They were in, as Toole put it, "a dark, dark place. Can you say, 'Rock bottom?'''
Two nights earlier, they'd opened their NEC schedule with an 84-77 loss to Bryant, a team in its first season of eligibility for the NEC postseason. Bryant figured to be a contender this season, but perhaps the Colonials couldn't forget that last season the Bulldogs were 2-28 overall and 1-17 in the NEC.
So maybe losing to the Bulldogs was merely an aberration. Hey, stuff happens.
But then RMU lost to Central Connecticut State, 77-70.
Alarms sounded. Red flags were raised.
And Toole, in his postgame press conference after that game, seemed, well, not quite despondent but definitely flummoxed and not happy.
"I have to figure out a way to get us to defend,'' he said then. "I have to figure out a way to get us to rebound. I have to figure out a way to make us tougher mentally, physically. We have some weaknesses. We have to address those things as soon as humanly possible. It's frustrating. At some point, it becomes a personal pride issue.''
It was as candid a presser as many around the Robert Morris scene had experienced.
Why was Toole so frank that evening?
"Why not?'' he said Monday afternoon. "I was obviously frustrated. I was frustrated with the guys. I don't know. I don't what led me to be so candid. I was just ... you know.''
Doubting himself?
"A little bit, yeah,'' he said. "No doubt. One of the things I pride myself on is being able to communicate with people, and I was having a real hard time getting through to this group of people. I was doubting how we were delivering the message, how we were teaching the message. Were they going to ever really completely buy into what we were working on? There probably was some self-doubt.
"What was going through my mind was there was so much potential with this team, so many things that most coaches would love to have on a roster, whether it's experience, whether it's versatility, whether it's guy who can make shots, make plays, and we just weren't getting it. I felt like if after losing one conference game and now playing a second home conference game and losing that one as well, if we didn't get it then, my concern was would we ever get it.''
Two days after the loss to CCSU, Toole and his assistants met and discussed the situation before beginning that week's practices.
Toole began that session by wondering if the players didn't know what to do on the court.
"And Robby brought up a great point,'' Toole said, remembering that morning.
Assistant coach Robby Pridgen spoke.
"Oh, they know,'' Pridgen said. "They're just not doing it. We have to figure out a way to get them to do it. We're going to go through some drill that Russell Johnson's done maybe 600 times and all of a sudden the light bulb's going to go on? He knows where to be. He knows what to do. Lucky (Jones) knows where to be and what to do. They're just making the decision not to do it.'''
"I think that was when we started to do some things in practice that really put the onus on individual decision-making," Toole said. "Making the right decisions or not.''
After all, this was, and is, a veteran team that had almost every player back from last season's squad that made it to the NEC Tournament championship game for the fourth consecutive season and finished 26-11. This was, and is, not a young team that had no clue about what to do and what playing in the NEC is like.
In short, this was a team that gotten "it'' before. It just had to get "it'' again.
"I don't think it was anything we did in here,'' Toole said, referring to the coaches' offices. "Maybe there was some self-examination in the locker room. Maybe some understanding that as talented as we think we might be or as good a team as we were supposed to become if we don't take care of the details, if we don't work, it doesn't matter.''
Senior point guard Velton Jones knew what a lot of the problem was during that first weekend.
"It all goes back to defense,'' he said back then. "That's what we have to start doing. If we don't defend, we're not going to win. Point blank. Period. That's something we just have to start doing.''
And they did. Immediately.
They won at Monmouth and at Fairleigh Dickinson the next weekend. They came home and defeated Sacred Heart and Quinnipiac. They won at Saint Francis University. They beat Mount St. Mary's at home.
They'd constructed a six-game winning streak by doing what they do best - playing defense. They allowed opponents just 64 points per game in that streak, almost exactly what they yielded last season when they led the NEC in defense by permitting only 63.5 points per game.
It was a huge improvement over the defense they played in their first two NEC games, which did not surprise Velton Jones.
"That whole weekend, I don't know what was up with us,'' he said Monday. "It was like aliens took over our bodies. I knew that wasn't us, and I knew we were able to play defense at a high level because we do it in practice every day. I knew we'd be able to do it.''
Another factor that helped this veteran Colonial team right itself was that it didn't panic after those first two losses.
"It didn't shake me up one bit,'' Jones said of that first weekend. "I felt like we let two games go, but I felt like we had a whole season ahead of us. We knew that. And that's what I was trying to harp on with our team. 'All right, we let two games get away, but there's still a whole season left to play.' I knew teams wouldn't keep winning and keep playing the way they were throughout the whole year, and I knew we would be able to get back into it. If we kept grinding and kept playing as hard as we could each and every game and take it a day at a time, I knew we'd be fine.
"This league is up and down and you never know. You can get beat at any moment in this league. I think we did a good job of being humbled and then getting hungry and just trying to take it one day at a time.''
The Colonials' six-game winning streak ended Jan. 31 with a 71-61 loss at St. Francis Brooklyn - a game in which Jones sustained a shoulder injury in the first two minutes and didn't play thereafter.
However, he played two days later at LIU Brooklyn, where the Colonials had lost in the NEC Tournament championship game in each of the two previous seasons, and made the decisive field goal in the waning seconds.
That win began a fabulous February in which the Colonials were 7-1, losing only at Quinnipiac Feb. 14, 63-61.
Throughout the month, the Colonials encountered injuries but persevered.
"It's funny,'' Toole said. "This team thrives on certain types of adversity. Some of our best performances have been when someone's been out of the lineup or someone's been hurt or something else has gone on. It's like it brings everybody together and they realize they have to be a little bit more focused or a little more detailed or a little more something, and guys all of a sudden have really seemed to be on the same page once that (adversity) happens. It's an oddity, but it's been something that during the course of this year has happened.''
The Colonials finished February in fine fashion by playing one of their best games of the season and winning at Bryant, 77-75, clinching the NEC regular-season championship in front of a raucous crowd at the Chace Athletic Center.
Two days later, when they could have pretty much mailed it in, they won easily at Central Connecticut State, 81-61.
"What you saw today was the best team in the league come in and dismantle us," CCSU coach Howie Dickenman told the New Britain Herald. "They outhustled us. They took away our shooting. They got into our grills and made sure we didn't get good looks at the baskets."
The Colonials had regrouped from that 0-2 start to reel off 14 wins in 16 games.
"I'm very proud of the way they've played in the last 16 games,'' Toole said. "Guys have really made the necessary adjustments to allow themselves and their team to be successful. I think guys have put things, whether it's individual and some differences, aside and realized the most important thing is winning and doing whatever you can to win. And I think that's been really important.''
"I'm real proud of how we were able to overcome that 0-2 adversity we started with and all the adversity we had to deal with throughout the year,'' Jones said. "There were a lot of things. Stuff in the locker room. On the court. Off the court. It was just a lot of things we had to battle, and I think our team battled it as well as we could. I'm proud of how we were able to deal with it and come back and win the games we've been able to win.''
Jones paused, reflecting on the two months since the Colonials were in that "dark, dark place.''
"I'm just proud of what we accomplished,'' he said.
