Men's Basketball | 3/7/2015 5:00:00 AM

Moon Township, Pa. - Veteran Lucky Jones did what he does in Northeast Conference Tournament games Wednesday night, and NEC neophytes Marcquise Reed, Rodney Pryor and Elijah Minnie proved to be quick studies following his lead.
 
That resulted in Robert Morris decisively defeating Wagner for the second time in six days in the Charles L. Sewall Center.
 
The Colonials' 91-59 win, Feb. 26, clinched an NEC Tournament home game for RMU. The Colonials' 91-68 victory Wednesday night sent them into the NEC semifinals today against visiting Bryant at noon.
 
And eased RMU coach Andrew Toole's mind more than a bit.
 
"Playing them again so quickly after beating them last Thursday I was concerned about just the maturity of our team,'' Toole said. "We've had a little bit of a thought process that if we do something well once, then that should just carry us through the rest of the time, and at this point in time every game's a single entity and you have to go out and prove it each time you step on the floor. So I was a little concerned with that.
 
"When you do beat a team by a decent margin that tends to motivate them in a major way. That was (Wagner's) rallying cry -- 'We were embarrased here last week and we can't let it happen again.' So you do get concerned about it. You do get concerned about complacency or just our team being 18- to 22-year-old guys who say we just have to show up and we can advance. I was happy with the way we handled it and the energy we played with.''
 
Jones, playing in his ninth career NEC Tournament game, definitely handled it. He matched his career high with a game-high 27 points, including 18 in the second half, and for all practical purposes sent the Seahawks back to Staten Island with a spectacular nine-points-in-78-seconds blitz relatively early in the second half.
 
"That's what seniors are supposed to do,'' Toole said. "When your team needs you to step and make a play, you do that. Lucky certainly did that."
 
Reed, Pryor and Minnie, all playing in their first NEC Tournament game, took note. Reed and Minnie, both freshmen, and Pryor, a junior college transfer, combined for 44 points, 20 rebounds and 12 assists.
 
"I thought they played well,'' Toole said. "I'm a tough grader, so there are still some things we can clean up for sure, but I thought those guys (did) well handling their first experience and were very important to us being successful.''
 
Reed, playing his first game just after being voted NEC Rookie of the Year, scored 22 points and had five rebounds and five assists.
 
"No pressure,'' Reed said after his 10th 20-point game this season. "Just go out there and play my game. No matter what the situation, go out there and play the way I've been playing.''
 
Pryor scored 15 points and contributed team highs of eight rebounds and seven assists. Minnie scored seven points and added seven rebounds. So pretty good stuff from that trio.
 
However, let's not get too far away from what Jones did.
 
He scored his 27 points in just 24 minutes, once again coming off the bench to play a major role in a Colonial win.
 
"I'm just trying to bring something to the team,'' Jones said. "I've been up and down (this season). It's probably not my best year at Robert Morris. This is my last postseason as a collegiate player, and I want to go out with a bang. I want to continue to have fun. I want to continue to smile (and) help my teammates. Nothing out of the norm. Just play my game and lead us to victory after victory. I'm feeling comfortable. I'm feeling great.''
 
It seemed as if Toole could sense Jones would have a big game against Wagner.
 
"Lucky was the first guy on the floor (Wednesday) afternoon for shoot-around,'' he said. "He was in the office Tuesday night watching film with our assistants getting ready for the game. He shot the ball really well during shoot-around. I felt if he could get some good looks he'd be in a good rhythm, and that's exactly what he did. He had great rhythm and great elevation on his jump shot.''
 
Especially during that trio of threes that Jones rained on the Seahawks in the second half.
 
Here's the background on that.
 
The Colonials had a 39-20 lead with 4:26 left in the first half. One might have thought that deficit, plus the 32-point defeat the Seahawks sustained here last Thursday, would have given Wagner the idea that beating RMU Wednesday just wasn't in the cards.
 
However, Robert Morris didn't score again in the first half. The Seahawks chipped away and trailed only 39-28 at the break.
 
It was a nine-point game, 45-36, three and-a-half minutes into the second half. The Colonials appeared stagnant.
 
Time for them to get Lucky.
 
"Coach Toole and I had that eye contact (on the bench),'' Jones said. "He looked at me. We (had been) up by a large margin and we were kind of relaxing and he said, 'You got to pick it up. You ready?' And I said, 'Yes.' And I went back into the game.''
 
Less than a minute later, the Colonials began a 14-2 run.
 
Stephan Bennett made a jumper off an assist from Kavon Stewart with 15:36 remaining. Pryor hit a three off an assist from Reed at 14:48.
 
And then along came Jones.
 
It was as if he said, "That was good, guys. Now watch this!''
 
At 13:57, Jones took a pass from Pryor and nailed a three from the right corner.
 
At 13:30, he took a pass from Bennett and drained a three from the right wing.
 
At 12:39, he took a pass from Stewart and drilled a three from the left corner.
 
Just like that, the Colonials led, 59-38.
 
Baseball players call something like that "huego.'' Ball game.
 
"I didn't go on (that run) by myself,'' Jones said. "I had to get the ball from somewhere. Credit my teammates. They found me when I was open, and I was ready to shoot every time. It was a great feeling. Through that spurt, I was just trying to make sure I was available for my team. Obviously I was feeling it, so no matter if there was a hand up or if somebody was in the area I just rose up and knocked it down.''
 
Once. And then again. And then yet again.
 
It's what Jones has done repeatedly in the NEC Tournament. In his nine NEC postseason games, he's scored 140 points and averaged 15.5 points per game. He's shot just under 50 percent from the floor – 50-of-101 (49.5 percent). He's made 17-of-37 from international waters. And 23-of-31 from the free throw line.
 
In the past four games this season, he's averaged 19 points per game and made 23 of his 45 field goal attempts.
 
"I think these last two or three weeks he's really done a nice job of making sure he's conveying the right messages to the guys,''  Toole said. "He's trying to explain to them how important preparation is, trying to explain to them how important (knowing the) scouting report is, which I think is key. I know Lucky wants to win as bad as anybody. He's a very, very tough competitor, and if he can maintain that mindset I think it helps the other guys fall in line.''
 
Which they did Wednesday night.
 
"This is probably the best time for us, and myself, to turn it up a notch because we don't want what happened last year to happen again,'' Jones said.
 
Last season, the Colonials were the top seed in the NEC Tournament but lost at home in the championship game to Mount St. Mary's.
 
Now they're poised to get to the championship game again, having constructed a four-game winning streak -- which began with a 76-70 victory at Bryant Feb. 21.
 
Now they play the Bulldogs again Saturday.
 
Bryant earned the trip to the Sewall Center with a 91-85 double-overtime win against visiting Sacred Heart Wednesday night.
 
The Bulldogs, who trailed at halftime, 38-30, and faced an uphill climb most of regulation, sent the game to overtime on a buzzer-beating three by Joe O'Shea. He made the hurried shot after teammate Dyami Starks misfired on a three, causing a wild scrum for the long rebound.
 
With only three-tenths of a second left, O'Shea shot -- and hit.
 
"I wish the clock ticked four-tenths faster," Sacred Heart coach Anthony Latina told the Providence Journal.
 
"It's kind of a blur," O'Shea said of the seconds after Starks' miss. "Someone almost knocked it away. I stumbled. I grabbed it and just tossed it up. It felt good, but I thought it might be a little short."
 
"I looked at his face and he looked bewildered, like, 'Did I hit that?'" Starks told the Providence newspaper.
 
Bryant coach Tim O'Shea, Joe's uncle, was a very proud relative.
 
"We're dead, and all of a sudden we have new life," Tim O'Shea said. "Jimmy Chitwood over there."
 
Yep, it must have seemed a bit like "Hoosiers'' to the Bulldogs.
 
"Games like this are what start to give a program a tradition," Tim O'Shea said after Bryant's first-ever NEC Tournament win. "I've done this for 31 years and there are certain games you never forget. Just a spectacular college basketball game."
 
Both Joe O'Shea and teammate Shane McLaughlin played all 50 minutes. Starks played 48.
 
O'Shea led the Bulldogs with 23 points. Starks, who was 8-of-25 from the floor, scored 22.
 
Bryant made nine of its 26 casts from deep.
 
Robert Morris, on the other hand, went 12-for-20 from beyond the arc against Wagner, including 7-of-8 in the second half.
 
"It's tough to beat a team that that's efficient,'' Wagner coach Bashir Mason said. "Those guys are a great team. They've stepped up. For maybe the last six games, they've been shooting lights out.''
 
And perhaps, just maybe, finally at long last understanding who they are.
 
"It took us a while to understand what kind of talent we really had,'' Jones said. "We played in spurts, but after watching film numerous times, talking to teammates, bringing things together and having team meals we just started to talk and get this thing rolling. This is our last time playing with each other. You're never going to have the same group of guys with you on the court and on the planes and in the hotels, so we have to enjoy this moment and we have to be as good as we can.''
 
NOTES: The Colonials' 91-point production against Wagner was their second-highest point total in an NEC Tournament game. On March 10, 1983, they beat Saint Francis U., 106-94, in the semifinals … Jones also scored 27 points in a game Dec. 22, 2013 when the Colonials lost at Oakland, 100-94 … Jones enters Saturday's game with 1,581 points, just behind former teammate Velton Jones, who scored 1,588 (2009-13) and ranks fifth on RMU's career points list … Reed has 470 points. Karon Abraham holds the RMU record for most points scored by a freshman with 477 (2010) … The Colonials averaged 86.3 points per game in their three wins over Wagner this season … In their win against Wagner last Thursday, the Colonials turned 19 Seahawk turnovers into 27 points. On Wednesday night, they turned 15 Wagner turnovers into 22 points. "They made us pay for every mistake,'' Mason said … Robert Morris has won 11 consecutive games against Wagner at the Sewall Center since the Seahawks upset them in the Sewall Center in the quarterfinals of the 2005 NEC Tournament.

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