Meyer On Morris Link

Moon Township, Pa. – In the emotional, somber and disappeared-dream aftermath of RMU's loss to Mount St. Mary's last Tuesday, it was definitely difficult for the Colonials to remember their season was not, indeed, over.
 
Yes, it sure felt like it after the visiting Mountaineers had snatched the Northeast Conference Tournament championship, 88-71, and grabbed the league's spot in the NCAA Tournament.
 
However, the Colonials do have a game in the National Invitation Tournament left.
 
"(This) was the only game that really mattered to us,'' senior guard Karvel Anderson said quietly. "We weren't really looking forward to anything after this unless it was the NCAA Tournament.''
 
RMU coach Andrew Toole seemed just as non-anticipatory about having to prepare his team for another game. Somebody asked him how hard it will be to get his team ready once he moved past the disappointment of losing the NEC title tilt.
 
"I'll let you know when I get past it,'' Toole said.
 
Presumably, that would be a few days. Maybe longer.
 
But prepare the Colonials must, so let's try to whip up some enthusiasm for their third trip to the postseason NIT in seven seasons.
 
In 2008, Robert Morris, the top seed in the NEC Tournament, lost to Mount St. Mary's in the Charles L. Sewall Center, 83-65, in the semifinals and had little eagerness to play in the NIT. However, they did rouse themselves enough to play Syracuse tough in the Carrier Dome nine nights later. The Colonials, who had a seven-point lead at times in the first half, led, 71-70, with seven minutes remaining and trailed just, 81-79, with a minute left. They lost, 87-81.
 
No Robert Morris fan will forget what happened in last season's postseason NIT.
 
Again, the Colonials were the top seed in the NEC. Again, they lost to Mount St. Mary's at home in the NEC Tournament semifinals, 69-60, and had absolutely zero desire to go play in the NIT.
 
And then they didn't have to go play their first game in the NIT. They wound up with a home game against defending NCAA champion Kentucky. Ten days after the dispiriting loss to Mount St. Mary's, the Colonials beat the unenthusiastic Wildcats, 59-57, in perhaps the biggest win by an NEC team in the league's history.
 
Never mind that several days later, RMU lost at Providence. The win against UK made the season a bit of OK after all.
 
So how, and against whom, do these Colonials go about salvaging something from yet another pride-pounding loss to Mount St. Mary's?
 
We'll know the "whom'' Sunday night when the event fills its plate from the leftovers who didn't make the NCAA feast. The Colonials, so despondent Tuesday, will have plenty of disappointed company in the NIT. Through Wednesday night, there were nine other regular-season champions who didn't make it through their conference tournaments: High Point (Big South), Green Bay (Horizon), Florida Gulf Coast (Atlantic Sun), Vermont (America East), Iona (Mid-Atlantic Athletic), Davidson (Southern), Belmont (Ohio Valley), Boston University (Patriot) and Southern (SWAC).
 
That's a bunch of other coaches who certainly felt as Toole did after his team lost in the conference tournament.
 
Toole was asked about the challenge of coaching a team that had only eight players beginning Jan. 23 and yet finished 14-2 in the NEC and won two more games in the NEC Tournament.
 
"From the outside looking in, it's obviously been extremely challenging, but being a part of it on the inside, it's been incredibly rewarding," Toole said. "The eight guys who are in the locker room right now who are crushed were incredible to coach. The efforts they gave on a daily basis really didn't show tonight, and that's what's so upsetting because they deserved better."'
 
Toole paused for several long seconds, having difficulty collecting his thoughts.
 
"They deserved better,'' he finished.
 
That they didn't get it was due to a combination of their defensive ineptitude and the decisive offensive execution of the Mountaineers.
 
The Colonials played defense Tuesday night as if it were the start of the season instead of the end of the season. Remember when the Colonials' generous man-to-man defense allowed at least 81 points to seven of the first nine opponents? Toole switched to a  2-3 zone defense Dec. 7 against Toledo. It took a bit of a time for the Colonials to perfect that zone, but after yielding 92 points at Oklahoma State, Dec. 30, the Colonials didn't surrender another 80-point game until Tuesday night.
 
In their three previous games, they permitted an average of only 56.3 points per game.
 
So it would seem that if somebody before Tuesday night's game said the Colonials would score 71 points against Mount St. Mary's, one would have figured they'd win.
 
"Sure,'' Toole said. "That's kind of where we've been all year. Those low 70s would have been great. But when you give up 48 in the first half, 71 doesn't look as good anymore. I don't think we were urgent enough defensively to start the game the way you need to be in a championship-type atmosphere.''
 
That atmosphere attracted a crowd of 3,024, the largest to watch the Colonials in "The Chuck'' this season. However, only the couple of hundred Mount fans who made the trip from Maryland were happy from the outset.
 
Mount St. Mary's actually missed its first shot but made seven of its next nine and led, 18-13, with nine minutes gone. It didn't get any better for the Colonials. With 12 and-a-half minutes played, Mount St. Mary's was 12-of-16 from the field (including 4-for-4 from beyond the arc) and led, 31-17. Four minutes later, the Mountaineers were 15-of-21 (6-for-8 from international waters) and led, 40-24. At halftime, Mount St. Mary's was 18-of-26 (69.2 percent) from the field and held a 48-32 lead.
 
"We didn't take away the high post,'' junior Lucky Jones said. "That's where they killed us.''
 
Mount St. Mary's effectively deployed its three senior guards, Rashad Whack, Julian Norfleet and Sam Prescott, against the zone. Whack and Norfleet manned the wings, with Prescott near the free throw line.
 
"Prescott is a guy who can attack and make shots from that high post,'' Toole said. "They made us make choices, and unfortunately it seemed like every choice was the wrong one.''
 
Whack, Norfleet and Prescott were a combined 9-of- 16 from the floor in the first half and the trio produced 24 points. Toss in freshman Will Miller's 11 points, six above his per-game average, and post player Taylor Danaher's 11 points, and you have a pretty potent first-half offense.
 
"They just spread us so thin it seemed like whatever they wanted in terms of ball movement they got,'' Toole said. "They were really able to get into the interior against our zone and pick their shot.''
 
Thing was, the Colonials weren't bad offensively in the first half. They made 13-of-25 from the field but managed only three attempts from deep and made just one.
 
They were productive in the second half, too, but trading baskets is not the way to make up a 16-point deficit.
 
Robert Morris did make one crowd-energizing charge in the second half. An 8-0 run trimmed the Colonials' deficit to 10 points, 57-47, with 12:44 remaining, but that was as close as they got.
 
"We got it down to 10 and then wanted to make a 10-point play, and those don't exist,'' Toole said. "Ten went right back to 20 pretty quick because we wasted possessions. Even to start the second half, we got three or four stops, and we just gave them the ball right back. You know, we got them to miss and we just gave them the ball right back. So all that hard work you're doing, all that swimming upstream that you're trying to accomplish, it's crushing to play defense for 30 seconds and they miss a three and they get the rebound right back and then you're right back where you started.''
 
Sort of like Sisyphus with that boulder back in the day.
 
"It just seemed like we were stuck in the mud all 40 minutes,'' Toole said.
 
Which wasn't good against Mount St. Mary's, which likes to pressure opponents and make three-pointers.
 
The Colonials avoided that in their two regular-season victories against the Mountaineers by controlling each game.
 
In Emmitsburg, Md., Jan. 18, the Colonials trailed by six points at halftime but weren't flustered, took control in the second half and won, 77-69. The Mountaineers shot just 41.9 percent from the field and made only 7-of-29 from deep.
 
In the Sewall Center Feb. 15, Robert Morris led by five points at halftime, never trailed in the second half and won, 69-61. Mount St. Mary's shot 39.6 percent from the field and made 7-of-27 casts from deep.
 
Tuesday night, Mount St. Mary's shot 60.4 percent from the field and made 8-of-18 from deep against the Colonials, who had limited their previous 10 opponents to 28.1 percent from beyond the arc.
 
"The way that Mount plays, they force you to get away from some of your set offense and force you to make basketball plays,'' Toole said. "The first two times we played them, we did a much better job of picking our shot. This game, once we got down, I think all of a sudden everybody started to get frantic and wanted to make a great play and that just plays into their hands. They did an especially good job limiting Karvel's looks. They did a good job on Lucky by putting a smaller, athletic guard on him. Then, other guys have to step up and make plays. In the other two games, we had other guys step up and score. Tonight, we didn't have that, so it made it difficult to make them change what they were doing. We couldn't counter with anybody who was going to step up and make a big play.''
 
That said …
 
"Clearly, Mount was the better team tonight,'' Toole said. "My hat's off to (Mountaineer coach) Jamion (Christian) and his staff for the job that they did. I'm disappointed for our team because I just wish we would have played better so we would have given ourselves a chance because I thought they deserved that. It's just disappointing. But like I said, Mount was the better team for tonight's game and usually the better team wins.''
 
NIT-PICKS: Jones, who scored a total of 48 points and had 19 rebounds in the three tournament games, was the only member from Robert Morris to make the NEC All-Tournament Team … Jones, who has 1,150 career points, has 644 career rebounds, sixth on RMU's all-time list. Jeremy Chappell (2005-09) is fifth with 681 … Anderson scored 21 points, adding to two of the season records he set this season. His season point total is 649, and he has 17 games in which he's eclipsed the 20-point plateau … Freshman Kavon Stewart, the heir-apparent at point guard, offered a glimpse of what he might do next season. Against the Mountaineers, he played 26 minutes and scored eight points and had five assists, four steals and three rebounds.