Meyer on Morris Link

Moon Township, Pa. – Yes, that was a train wreck of a loss Robert Morris had last Saturday. Having a 13-point lead with four minutes remaining and losing is not good. Clanking five free throws in the final two and-a-half minutes is particularly noisome.
 
However, if one looks carefully, and optimistically, there is light at the end of this tunnel that seemed so dark Saturday evening.
 
"It's not the end of the world,'' junior forward Lucky Jones said. "We didn't lose the championship game. We didn't lose the regular-season championship. Everything is still in place. We're still in first place. We still have a great opportunity to do some tremendous things.''
 
All of that is indeed true. The Colonials reached the halfway point of the Northeast Conference season with a 7-1 record. They lead second-place Bryant (6-2) by a game, and really two games because they own the NEC Tournament tie-breaker over the Bulldogs.
 
They have the opportunity this weekend to restore their self-esteem, not to mention bolstering their hold on the NEC race, with games at LIU Brooklyn Thursday and Saint Francis Brooklyn Saturday.
 
See? Things aren't so awful.
 
Especially if the Colonials do actually, you know, take to heart what happened to them against Central Connecticut State last Saturday.
 
"It's a lesson to be learned,'' Jones said. "We can't sulk. We have to keep our heads up. We have two big games on Thursday and Saturday.''
 
The Colonials had two big games just before they played Central Connecticut State, which could have contributed to their loss to the Blue Devils.
 
On Jan. 25, they held off Wagner at the Charles L. Sewall Center. Two nights before the CCSU game, they turned back Bryant at home.
 
In short, they were ripe for an upset by CCSU, which entered the game 1-6 in the NEC and is been playing without stars Kyle Vinales (broken finger) and Matthew Hunter (academics).
 
"We honestly didn't take them as seriously as (Bryant),'' Jones said.
 
Big mistake. However, "trap games'' happen all the time in college basketball.
 
In fact, Robert Morris wasn't the only team to face that situation last weekend.
 
A sampling …
 
Delaware, which beat Robert Morris Nov. 30, last Saturday played North Carolina-Wilmington. Delaware entered the game 7-0 in the Colonial Athletic Association, while Wilmington came in 0-6. Easy game for the Blue Hens, right? Nope. They had to block a shot in the waning seconds to protect a 66-65 victory.
 
In the Atlantic 10 Saturday, St. Louis played host to George Mason. St. Louis entered the game 6-0 in the league, and George Mason limped in 0-6. Easy game for the Billikens, right? Nope. They had to go overtime to brick George Mason, 87-81.
 
On Sunday in the American Athletic Conference, Cincinnati, coming of a huge win at Louisville three nights earlier, entertained South Florida. The Bearcats entered the game 9-0, while the Bulls did not exactly stampede in, holding a 2-6 league record. Easy game for the Bearcats, right? Nope. They trailed, 41-38, with six and-a-half minutes left but did manage to get it together and survive, 50-45.
 
Yes. Trap games happen.
 
One more example?
 
Central Connecticut State was in a similar situation against Wagner just nine days earlier.
 
On Jan. 23, CCSU played at Wagner having lost its first four NEC games, all at home, including an 88-59 rout by Wagner. The Seahawks were 3-1. Easy game for the Seahawks, right? Nope. Despite leading, 75-70, with 2:07 remaining they lost, 87-83.
 
"It's basketball,'' Jones said. "That's the way the game goes.''
 
Almost every team has a game like this in the course of a season. It's simply a matter of time. Sometimes teams escape the trap.
 
Sometimes they don't.
 
RMU coach Andrew Toole and his staff immediately recognized the Central Connecticut State game for what it was and tried to convey that to the players.
 
"We started talking about it Thursday night (after the Bryant game),'' Toole said. "We talked about it all day (Friday).''
 
To no avail.
 
"Our shootaround (Saturday) was extremely disrepectful to the game of basketball,'' Toole said.
 
Perhaps the basketball gods that Toole mentioned after the Wagner win took note of that. It was almost as if those guys quickly called a meeting and decided, "OK, these Colonials need to learn a lesson.'' And one of them must have said, "But let's tease them a bit in the process.''
 
The Colonials quickly overcame a slow start and built a 46-30 halftime lead. By then, the Blue Devils were deep into an 11 and-a-half minute stretch that carried into the second half in which they would miss 13 consecutive field goal attempts and score a total of four points.
 
The situation couldn't have seemed better for Robert Morris.
 
"You come out thinking it's all good and you have the lead and then you just slack off,'' Jones said.
 
"You could see our lack of urgency,'' Karvel Anderson said. "We weren't as urgent as we were in the first half. We got comfortable. We let it go away.''
 
The Colonials had a big opportunity to put the Blue Devils away in the first six minutes of the second half. CCSU scored only two points in that span. Two.
 
Had Robert Morris continued to play with some urgency, it could have been ahead by 25 points. Heck, perhaps more.
 
"I think we were really fortunate to be up (what) we were,'' Toole said, referencing the first several minutes of the second half.  "Do you know how many layups (the Blue Devils) missed in the beginning of that half? They probably had four or five shots that rolled off the rim. We were fortunate that they were missing layups. We thought everything was great. We'll just keep putting in the same amount of effort that we're putting in defensively and keep getting the same result. They'll keep missing those layups. The problem was, we were just fortunate in the beginning of the half because we came out very casually defensively, and it didn't hurt us until we really needed to try to turn it up. Sometimes when you're not fully engaged or you're not fully focused for an entire 40 minutes when you go to flip that switch, (there's) nothing there.''
 
The Colonials were no great shakes offensively, either, in those first several minutes of the second half. They needed almost seven minutes to get their third and fourth points of the half.
 
The basketball gods had one more "tease'' left in them. They permitted the Colonials to go up, 63-45, with 7:38 remaining. By all rights, this game should have been over. Those basketball gods knew better.
 
"First and foremost, great credit to Central for the way they did not stop, the way they continued to compete, the way they continued to believe they could win the game,'' Toole said. "We didn't respect the game in the second half. We didn't respect our opponent in the second half. Usually what happens is something extremely disappointing, and that's what you saw out there today.
 
"We have a mentality as a team that when things are going our way and things are going good we want to kick our feet up and relax. That's not how you are successful as a college basketball team. As a college basketball team when you have the opportunity to put a team away or you have the opportunity to extend a lead or you have the opportunity to maintain your effort, you do that. Our first goal in our program is sustained effort. We did not sustain our effort today, and that's why we lost the game.''
 
Robert Morris did have the opportunity to do what Delaware, Saint Louis and Cincinnati did and win the game, but those five misses in 11 free throw attempts in the last two and-a-half minutes cost them dearly. CCSU won, 74-73.
 
"Lack of urgency,'' Jones said. "We didn't take full control of the opportunity that we had and let it slip away. You need a lot of urgency every time you step on the court. You can't take any teams for granted. The fans were tremendous, helping us try to stay in the game and keeping their enthusiasm. We just have to turn it around. This was a wakeup call, and we have to take every opportunity that we have more seriously than we have in the past. We have to focus on getting back to Robert Morris basketball. That's what we did not do (Saturday), and that's what hurt us.''
 
"That's the first close game we've lost in league play,'' Toole said. "We didn't make free throws at the end of the game when we needed to make free throws, didn't get stops when we needed to get stops, didn't get rebounds when we needed to get rebounds.''
 
Toole paused.
 
"We almost got away with it,'' he said. "We almost got away with it.''
 
However, those all-knowing basketball gods didn't let them.
 
LUCKY 13: Jones did reach the 1,000-point level for his career Saturday, becoming the 22nd Colonial to score 1,000 career points.
 
"It's a great accomplishment,'' Jones said, "but we have way more than just individual stuff to accomplish this year. We have winning the regular season championship, winning the NEC championship, going to the NCAA Tournament.''
 
Jones about a month ago this season surpassed 500 career rebounds. He's the 13th Colonial to reach 1,000 points (1,015) and 500 rebounds (566) in his career.
 
UP NEXT: LIU Brooklyn, the three-time defending NEC champion which has been without injured star Julian Boyd all season, lost at Mount St. Mary's, 95-92, Saturday when Sam Prescott hit a trey with 0.3 of a second remaining. The loss dropped the Blackbirds to 2-6 in the NEC, which the Colonials would be wise to disregard.

LIU Brooklyn outrebounded the Mountaineers, 39-26, and had five players score in double figures.
 
E.J. Reed led the Blackbirds with 24 points. Freshman Iverson Fleming came off the bench and scored 18 points. Point guard Jason Brickman scored 12 points and added 12 assists. Brickman has 930 career assists, 13th all-time in Division I basketball. Former Duke great Bobby Hurley is No. 1 all-time with 1,076.
 
Mount St. Mary's, which was 16-of-29 from beyond the arc, received 26 points from Rashad Whack and 24 from Julian Norfleet.
 
NEC NUGGETS: Saint Francis Brooklyn beat visiting Wagner, 73-72, on Wayne Martin's field goal with 24 seconds left in overtime. Wagner had chances thereafter but missed three field goal attempts in the last eight seconds. Martin, who did not start, scored 17 points, had nine rebounds and blocked seven shots. Teammate Jalen Cannon had a 19-11 double-double. Kenny Ortiz scored 19 points for the Seahawks. Jay Harris had 18 … Surging Saint Francis University won its third straight game, 83-75, over visiting Fairleigh Dickinson, which trailed, 47-31, at halftime. Ben Millaud-Meunier scored 22 points for the Red Flash, taking up some of the slack caused by Earl Brown's sub-par seven-point, five-rebound performance. Sidney Sanders Jr. had 30 points and eight assists for the Knights … Bryant escaped a bit of a trap game Sunday at Sacred Heart (1-7). The Bulldogs led, 41-23, at halftime, but Sacred Heart cut that lead to five points with 2:06 remaining before Bryant steadied and won, 76-67. Dyami Starks (22), Alex Francis (20) and Corey Maynard (another 20) scored the bulk of Bryant's points. Luis Montes led the Pioneers with 22 points. Teammate Steve Glowiak made six three-pointers in the second half, including the one that trimmed Bryant's lead to five points, and finished with 21 points.

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