Meyer On Morris: A Christmas Wish

By: By Paul Meyer

Men's Basketball | 12/24/2014 8:26:00 AM

Moon Township, Pa. – Ask Andrew Toole what he wants for Christmas and his answer might seem a tad strange.

He'd like rocks.

That's a far cry from, oh, say, sugar plums. But rocks it is.

As in bedrocks. Cornerstones.

Reliable guys.

That's essentially what the Robert Morris coach discussed Monday evening in the wake of the Colonials' fourth victory, an oh-too-close 84-81 dispatch of Delaware at the Charles L. Sewall Center.

Toole was asked, yet again, about the lack of consistency plaguing his squad. Specifically, whether that inconsistency could be traced to the large number of first-year Colonials on this team.

"Yes and no,'' Toole said. "No, because some of our most inconsistent players are some of our most experienced. I could (understand) if you sat here and said, 'Man, you have five dudes that have experience and those guys are your rocks and those guys are playing at least at this baseline night in and night out.' You can't even really say that.''

Hear that, Santa?

"Some of our best performers are our young guys,'' Toole continued. "It's really a crapshoot up and down the roster. Wherever it comes from it needs to come quickly and needs to come consistently.''

Toole lauded senior Lucky Jones, who's been among the inconsistent but who against Delaware scored 15 points, including seven from the free throw line in the frenzied final minutes.

"Lucky played very well,'' Toole said. "I thought he was engaged. I thought he was playing hard. I thought he communicated as well as he has. I thought he took good shots. Hopefully it's something that he can build on.''

Toole also cited upperclassmen Aaron Tate, Stephan Bennett and David Appolon, along with sophomore Kavon Stewart, who's in his first season as the starting point guard and who, by the way, did not dress for the Delaware game.

"We have to understand exactly what we're going to get from (at least) four out of five of them on a nightly basis,'' Toole said.

Then there are the new players.

Junior college transfer Rodney Pryor drew praise for his efficient 19 points against the Blue Hens.

"Rodney has had great performances and then has had some difficult ones,'' Toole said. "Hopefully he's learning every time he steps on the floor.''

Freshman guard Marcquise Reed led the Colonials with 20 points.

"Marcquise obviously is very talented but still learning,'' Toole said. "(The new) guys are expected to be up and down.''

However, when the entire roster is up and down, it can turn a coach sideways.

"We are dying for some consistency,'' Toole said. "As you can tell from lineups, from minutes played, from game-by-game shooting percentages or activity level or body language we don't have it yet. At some point in time, we have to have some guys who can step up and be those guys day in and day out. It's not only consistency in terms of offensive execution. It's consistency in terms of overall effort and energy. That's really the biggest thing we need on a regular basis.

"If you look at our stats when we win and when we lose it's like Jekyll and Hyde. And you can't be a very good team if you're doing that. That's how you become a .500 or below team.''

The Colonials climbed to 4-7 with the Delaware win and have a game at Clemson Dec. 30 before they begin Northeast Conference play Jan. 3.

So there isn't a lot of time left for that consistency, those rocks, to arrive.

"We're trying find consistency as far as personalities within the group,'' Pryor said. "Like personality as far as leadership, as far as energy, as far as just coming every day and bringing it. We have to find more consistent personalities for us to be more consistent on the floor.''

Perhaps the Colonials will take whatever they learned against Delaware and add to it at Clemson.

"We want to play really well and take that into conference,'' Pryor said of the Clemson contest. "We don't want to go in there and get blown out or (have) no energy. Or lack of detail. We want to go in there with full detail and full energy and be flying around so we can start the conference season off right.''

Despite Stewart sitting out for violating a team rule, the Colonials behind fill-in point guard Appolon got off to a good start against Delaware. They made seven of their first eight field goal attempts and led, 16-8, just four and-a-half minutes in. They settled for a six-point lead at halftime, 36-30, and gradually, as foul problems mounted in a tightly-called game, built their advantage to 65-49 with seven minutes remaining.

And then?

"We kind of exhaled,'' Pryor said.

"It got chaotic,'' Toole noted.

Indeed, while seemingly doing everything they could to win the game, the Colonials at the same time did everything they could to lose the game.

Winless Delaware (0-10) amped up its full-court pressure and the Colonials sometimes had difficulty simply inbounding the ball. Thus the Blue Hens were able to peck away and whittle their deficit to just five, 78-73, with 54 seconds left and then only three, 82-79, with 25 seconds remaining.

"With foul (trouble) everybody was playing different positions on the floor,'' Pryor said. "We weren't organizing as well. We were grabbing the inbounds pass right away and not letting our offense get set. That was a big issue for us.''

"We had some odd lineups out there at times, so we weren't as fluid as we should be or could be,'' Toole said. "Their press became more aggressive. They had a little bit of a soft press going, which we were able to break easily, and then the first couple times they tried to really trap us we were able to get good fast breaks and layups out of it. I think it goes back a little bit to the idea of, 'The game's over. Well, hold on, there are still four minutes on the clock.'

"Some of (it was) our communication, some was our organization. Some of the areas where guys were catching the ball were just trouble spots. We had (freshman) Jafar (Kinsey) and Dave in there and their guards were switching on our attempts to get open and they weren't adjusting very well. So we were trying to coach it on the fly, trying to throw some new bodies in and see if we could figure it out.''

Probably would have helped a lot if Stewart had been in there to help with ball-handling and press-breaking.

"Those last four or five minutes (are when) you really want to shrink the game, where you want to handle pressure, where you need a singular voice out there to make sure guys are in the right spots,'' Toole said. "Lucky did it really well on three or four possessions, but on a couple possessions Rodney grabbed the ball to take it out and no one was ready yet. So those are things we need to keep going over so we can tighten those things up regardless of who might be in the game at that time.''

The Colonials kept the Blue Hens at bay by excelling from the free throw line. With three and-a-half minutes left and RMU up, 67-60, Bennett began a streak of 16 consecutive made free throws. That was especially impressive, and necessary, because before Bennett stepped to the line at that time the Colonials had made only 11-of-21 free throw attempts against Delaware.

"We weren't getting the stops that we needed, and so if we didn't continue to score we would have been in real trouble,'' Toole said. "Those were really important shots.''

In that stretch of 16 straight, Jones made seven, Reed made five and Appolon and Bennett each made two.

"We had the confidence to knock the free throws down,'' Appolon said matter-of-factly.

"It was just one of those situations where we had to keep our heads high and make sure we didn't get down or get out of control,'' Pryor said. "It was good that we stayed strong even though we finished ugly.''

As someone said, a win's a win no matter how you win it.

"I hope it's something we can build on,'' Toole said. "It's just kind of who we are right now. We'll continue to talk about it and hammer it home and try and have good practices and try and get the message across and get people prepared. But a lot of times that comes down to some individual decision-making about how you prepare yourself night in and night out.''

And that, of course, comes down to being consistent.

NOTES: Jones has 1,315 career points, 11th all-time at Robert Morris. Next up is Gene Nabors (1,328). Jones also has 714 career rebounds, fourth all-time. Next up is Russell Johnson (746). Jones recently became just the 22nd player in NEC history to amass at least 1,300 points and at least 700 rebounds. Jones needs four more steals to join former Colonial Tony Lee in what will be a trio of NEC players to collect 1,300 points, 700 rebounds, 150 assists and 150 steals … Stewart should play at Clemson, according to Toole … Clemson moved to 7-4 with a 70-60 win against visiting Oakland Monday night. The Tigers are 5-2 at home and are off until the Colonials visit … Partially because of Stewart's absence, Kinsey played 21 minutes against Delaware. That's one minute shy of his season high. He played 22 minutes at Chattanooga Nov. 26 … In his fill-in start at point guard, Appolon scored 12 points, grabbed five rebounds, had three assists and made two steals … Delaware is off to its worst start since its 1929-30 team lost its first 12 games.

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