Meyer on Morris

Moon Township, Pa. – This was Lucky Jones talking about Charles Oliver early last week.
 
"Chuck O just has to continue to stay in the groove, continue to stay hungry, continue to be ready to shoot every time he gets the ball, and not some of the time,'' Jones said. "He's our sharpshooter. We look for him when the offense is stagnant to make shots.''
 
Well, what do you know? Just a few days later in the Charles L. Sewall Center, Chuck O rocked "The Chuck.''
 
On a day that RMU's two leading scorers, Karvel Anderson and Jones, struggled big-time, Oliver came up large-time.
 
The junior scored a career-high 19 points to help pull the Colonials past Mount St. Mary's, 69-61, and run their Northeast Conference record to 11-1.
 
"It was huge,'' Jones said of Oliver's performance. "I've had conversations with Chuck before about helping us score. That's his job any time he comes into the game. With his ability to shoot the three and drive on smaller defenders, he has to take advantage of all (his) opportunities.''
 
Oliver's 19-point total was three more points than the combined total for Jones and Anderson, who managed eight points apiece against a Mount defense determined to negate them.
 
"Chuck is a guy who's very, very capable of making shots,'' RMU coach Andrew Toole said. "We're an equal opportunity offense.''
 
Against Mount St. Mary's, Oliver was an equal opportunity scorer. He made three baskets from long range (in three attempts), both his free throw attempts and four field goals from inside the arc.
 
"Chuck was awesome,'' Toole said. "They do a great job of trying to take away Karvel and Lucky, so you need a third guy to be able to step up, and to his credit he stepped up. He was aggressive. He was locked in.''
 
Not just at tipoff, either. Several hours before the 4:00 p.m. start, Oliver, and a few others, had a hunch he could have a career day. Or at least a career day to this point.
 
"When I got to shoot-around (Saturday) morning, he was already out there shooting with (assistant coach) Robby Pridgen, getting shots, working on things he was going to do in the game,'' Toole said.
 
Later, assistant coach Michael Byrnes told Oliver he felt he'd have an impact in the game.
 
"He told me (the Mountaineers) were going to deny Lucky and Karvel and they weren't really going to respect me, so I had to make them pay for that,'' Oliver said. "(That's) what I tried to do. I could kind of tell even through shoot-around that I felt good. I was confident.''
 
As the game began to develop, people could "kind of tell'' this might not be a good day for Jones and Anderson. Neither scored in the first 12 minutes.
 
By then, though, Oliver had made his presence felt, having scored 10 points. He got his first eight in a four and-a-half minute span, then added two points on a layup with 8:17 left in the first half, nudging the Colonials toward a 22-13 lead.
 
Oliver, who transferred from Lakeland Community College near Cleveland after last season, finished the first half with 13 points, then added six in the second half.
 
"When he got in the game, he did those things he worked on (during the shoot-around),'' Toole said. "I was really proud of his effort, and he was equally as good defensively as he was offensively. We would love to see him do that on a consistent basis. I think that would make it that much more difficult for people to try to take away (Anderson and Jones). He can get hot and get going in a second. He's a guy who has the ability to not only make three-pointers but (also) get to the rim and finish.''
 
"I don't consider myself just a spot-up shooter,'' Oliver said. "I think I have other elements in my game that can hurt defenses and make them pay. Shooting's something I do the best, but I can put the ball on the floor and hurt teams in other ways. I just have to stay consistent. That's one of the biggest things with me, staying consistent with my preparation. It was good to have a game like this, but I've got to maintain it because it's getting (to be) crunch time. I have to help out (Jones and Anderson) because they carry a lot of the (offensive) burden.''
 
Anderson (21.7 points per game) and Jones (13.5) entered Saturday's game supplying almost half of RMU's average of 74.5 points per game against NEC opposition. So with their combined 16-point production against Mount St. Mary's, help had to come from somewhere.
 
"You never know who's going to be needed to step up,'' Toole said.
 
Oliver did his part. So did Anthony Myers-Pate (11 points) and Stephan Hawkins (10).
 
"If you'd said (before the game), 'You're going to win the game by eight and your three double-digit scorers are going to be Hawk, Ant and Chuck,' I'm not sure you guys would have believed that,'' Toole told the media. "We have confidence in our guys that if we execute and play together we have a lot of guys who can make shots. When we needed to find some baskets. When we needed to execute, guys stepped up and made big plays.''
 
At halftime, Anderson and Jones had a combined five points. Yet the Colonials led, 31-26.
 
The duo picked it up offensively a bit in the second half. Anderson dropped in two field goals in a 53-second span to give RMU a 54-43 lead with 4:53 left.
 
"I guess the ball started liking me a little more,'' said Anderson, chased defensively by Rashad Whack for much of the afternoon. "I shoot the same way every time. It was just one of those nights. It's frustrating. I felt like I still got some good looks regardless of how they were playing me. I could still get to where I wanted to. I missed a lot of layups, a lot of wide open shots that I normally don't miss. I'm not used to missing like that. But we have other guys who can definitely step up and help -- like Chuck.''
 
Anderson missed all four of his launches from deep Saturday. It was just the second game this season in which he came up empty in international waters, and only the second game in which he didn't score in double figures. At Oakland Dec. 22, bothered by the flu, he was 0-for-6 from beyond the arc and scored nine points. Interestingly, that day Oliver scored 18 points.
 
The Colonials attempted only 12 shots from deep against a Mount St. Mary's defense that relies on full-court pressure and running shooters off the three-point line.
 
"They can entice you into getting up and down the floor and taking quick shots, and sometimes your eyes light up because you see all this space,'' Toole said. "They hustle. They scramble. They get you playing faster than you're used to. They can get you in trouble. We wanted to be smart about the way we broke (the Mountaineer pressure). We'd (fast) break if we could, but we didn't want to start getting crazy. I felt we got some good opportunities early in the game in transition or secondary breaks, and then we did start to get a little bit out of control. We started to feel like we could make a play every time we touched it. We weren't running offense. We weren't moving the ball very well.
 
"In the second half, I think some of our tempo was because they were making it difficult for us to execute offense. We got some things at the end of the game against their pressure and on the break, so you just have to be smart about when you do it and have poise while you're doing it.''
 
"Their pressure gets to you a little,'' Myers-Pate said, "but you just have to stay poised and stay together. (Our emphasis) was, 'When you get in the lane, finish. Get in there and finish.'''
 
The Colonials did a dandy job of that. They outscored Mount St. Mary's in the paint, 40-16.
 
The Colonials continued to go to the rim even in the final minutes when some thought perhaps it would be prudent to pull the ball out and run some clock.
 
"It's tough,'' Toole said. "All my assistants were yelling (to) take timeouts, but I thought we might be able to get some stuff out of it. Obviously, if you go in and miss those layups, now it's a whole different game and maybe we're sitting here with a different outcome. But those were some of the best ways that we were able to score and continue to keep the lead by attacking their pressure and going in and getting layups. We had to be smart and try to make good decisions for our team. I think most of our points in the second half were in some kind of broken play or some type of transition situation, so I didn't want to completely take that away. I wanted to try and continue to stay aggressive.''
 
In the final three and-a-half minutes, all four Robert Morris field goals were the result of either dunks or layups. They also kept the Mountaineers from manufacturing a serious run by making seven of their nine free throw attempts, negating the effect of three Whack trifectas in the last 2:16.
 
UP NEXT: The Colonials, who hold essentially a three-game lead in the NEC with four games remaining, entertain LIU Brooklyn Thursday night. The Blackbirds (3-8) stayed in the hunt for an NEC Tournament berth by holding off Saint Francis Brooklyn, 69-68, Sunday afternoon in the "Battle of Brooklyn'' at the Barclays Center.
 
Troy Joseph made two free throws with six seconds remaining to give LIU Brooklyn a 69-65 lead. Ben Mockford's three-pointer just before the buzzer accounted for the final score.
 
Landon Atterberry, who was 9-of-12 from the field, led the Blackbirds with 20 points. Point guard Jason Brickman contributed 14 assists. Saint Francis Brooklyn (6-5), which visits RMU next Saturday, received 17 points from Mockford and 15 from Jalen Cannon. Terrier point guard Brent Jones and teammate Wayne Martin, two of four Terriers suspended indefinitely Feb. 8, played Sunday.
 
Neither team shot well from the free throw line. LIU Brooklyn was 9-of-16; the Terriers were 14-of-22.
 
NEC NUGGETS: Bryant (8-3), which spent two days in Gettysburg before its scheduled game at Mount St. Mary's Thursday night was postponed, lost at Wagner, 73-61, Sunday. Wagner built a 51-32 lead with 11:17 left, but Bryant whittled its deficit to seven points (59-52) with three and-a-half minutes remaining. The Seahawks (7-4) sealed the deal by making 12-of-14 free throw attempts in the final three minutes. Alex Francis had 26 points and 10 rebounds for Bryant, which was two for 13 from deep. Teammate Dyami Starks added 11 points, although he struggled from the field. He was 3-for-13 overall, including 0-for-5 from beyond the arc. Kenny Ortiz led Wagner with 18 points, six rebounds and seven steals. Each team committed 18 turnovers … Saint Francis University (6-6) staved off a furious Fairleigh Dickinson rally and won on the road, 89-82, Saturday. The Red Flash led, 80-65, with 1:55 left, but the Knights scored 13 points in the next 67 seconds and trailed, 82-78, with 48 seconds left before running out of steam. Earl Brown led six Red Flash double-figure scorers with 22 points. Sidney Sanders Jr. was 12 of 29 from the field and scored 31 points for the Knights (4-7), who have lost five straight games … Central Connecticut State (4-7) won for the third time in four games by coming from behind and beating visiting Sacred Heart, 74-69. The Pioneers led, 52-41, with 12:45 left, but CCSU took control with a 16-0 run. De'Angelo Speech scored a career-high 23 points for the Blue Devils. Mostafa Abdel Latif had 17 rebounds for Sacred Heart, while Steve Glowiak scored 27 points, hitting 7-of-13 from beyond the arc. "We knew one way they'd have a chance to beat us was if Glowiak got off, and he did," CCSU coach Howie Dickenman told the New Britain Herald. "He made a couple of amazing shots where I thought our players were in his shirt -- and from quite a distance."

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