Women's Basketball | 11/8/2019 9:46:00 AM
Moon Township, Pa. – The
Robert Morris University women's basketball team conclude a season-opening two-game road swing on Saturday, Nov. 9 when it travels to La Salle. The Colonials are in search of their first win of 2019-20, nearly getting it against Power 5 opponent, TCU, on Tuesday. Following its game against the Explorers, RMU makes its UPMC Events Center debut on Wednesday, Nov. 13 at 7:00 p.m. against Youngstown State.
GAME #2
Robert Morris Colonials (0-1, 0-0 NEC) @ La Salle Explorers (1-0, 0-0 A-10)
Saturday, November 9, 2019 // Noon // Philadelphia, Pa. – Tom Gola Arena (3,400)
Live Video: ESPN+ // Live Stats: GoExplorers.com
Notes Package: Robert Morris // La Salle
History w/ La Salle
Overall: 2-4 | Home: 1-1 | Away: 1-2 | Neutral: 0-0 | Streak: W2
Last Game: Nov. 11, 2018 – Moon Township, Pa. – Robert Morris 67, La Salle 39
Robert Morris is 2-4 all-time against La Salle, but won the last two series meetings in 2015 and 2018. Prior to that, the Colonials had lost four games to the Explorers from 1981 to 2014 by an average of 20.8 points.
Last November, RMU held La Salle to 22.2 percent shooting in its 67-39 triumph. The Colonials were dynamite from deep, converting 45.8 percent (11-24) of their attempts, with then-freshmen
Esther Castedo and
Isabella Posset sharing high honors in scoring at 12 points apiece.
RMU's last road victory in the series came on Nov. 21, 2015, a 76-45 rout of the Explorers. Anna Niki Stamolamprou '17 led all scorers with 15 points, adding seven rebounds and four assists.
Mikalah Mulrain '18 posted a 13-point, 11-rebound double-double.
Scouting the Explorers
La Salle was selected 14th in the Atlantic 10 Conference Preseason Poll, but came away with a 78-62 road victory against Howard in its season opener on Tuesday. Mountain MacGillivray is entering his second season as head coach of the Explorers, who went 6-25 in 2018-19.
Freshman guard Claire Jacobs was immense in the win over the Bison, leading the team with 20 points on 7-of-9 shooting. Junior guard Deja King, who paced La Salle in scoring (9.0) in 14 games last season, added 12 points and six assists, while sophomore forward Kayla Spruill provided 12 points and eight rebounds.
The Explorers were efficient from the field against Howard, shooting 45.6 percent on 57 attempts. They also drew 19 fouls and went to the line 32, converting 20 for a 62.5 percent rate. La Salle did struggle with turnovers, however, committing 25 compared to the 14 it forced.
Near Miss
Robert Morris nearly had a statement victory in its season opener on Tuesday, taking Big 12 opponent TCU to the wire before falling, 66-61. The Colonials made up an 11-point deficit and led 50-47 through three quarters, but the Horned Frogs swung back with an 11-4 advantage in the final frame to take back control.
The win would have been just the fourth ever for RMU over a Power 5 opponent. The Colonials' most recent triumph came in 2010 at Virginia Tech (66-52), and they also defeated West Virginia in 1994 (88-80, OT) and Purdue in 1982 (67-55).
RMU's next chance to add a Power 5 win to its history won't come until a potential postseason contest, though it will host Big East foe Xavier at the UPMC Events center on Sunday, Dec. 1.
Forbes Avenue
Making her NCAA debut at TCU, accomplished junior college transfer
Holly Forbes showed a quick adjustment to Division I basketball, providing the Colonials with 10 points (4-5 FG, 2-3 FT), four rebounds, two steals, and a block in 27 minutes. Forbes comes to Moon Township by the way of Mineral Area College in Park Hills, Mo., where she was a two-time NJCAA Division I All-America selection.
Forbes is the fourth Colonial in the last six seasons to score in double figures in their team debut, joining current redshirt sophomore
Megan Callahan (14, Nov. 11, 2017 at Michigan State) and alumnae
Nia Adams '19 (11, Nov. 11, 2015 vs. West Virginia Wesleyan) and
Megan Smith '18 (11, Nov. 16, 2014 at Iowa). The Bonne Terre, Mo. is also the first RMU player to start their first game with the team since
Honoka Ikematsu did in 2017 at Michigan State.
Run It Back
Coming off its eighth NEC Tournament and seventh NEC regular-season championships in 2018-19, Robert Morris was selected as the unanimous favorite in the NEC Preseason Coaches' Poll, earning all 10 possible first-place votes. This is the fifth time in the last seven seasons that the Colonials were chosen as the top team in the preseason poll, with the two outlier years being 2015-16 and 2016-17 when they were picked to finish second.
RMU returns 85.6 percent of their scoring and 77.3 percent of their minutes from last season, despite only having one senior (
Nneka Ezeigbo) on the roster. Ezeigbo,
Isabella Posset, and
Nina Augustin started at least 19 games in 2018-19, as that trio makes up three of the nine returning letterwinners.
The Senior
Nneka Ezeigbo enters her senior season as one of the most accomplished players in program history. The Ewing, N.J. native is a three-time All-NEC selection, having climbed from Rookie Team in 2017 to Second and First Team in the following years. She captured NEC Defensive Player of the Year and NEC Tournament MVP honors last season, and won three NEC regular-season and two NEC Tournament titles over her career at RMU.
Ezeigbo ranks eighth all-time at RMU in blocks (82) and is one of 12 players in program history with 500 career rebounds and 100 career steals. With just 55 more points and 18 more blocks, the senior will become the fourth player to eclipse 1,000 points, 500 rebounds, 100 steals, and 100 blocks in a career, joining Elise James '00, Maebeth Schalles '93, and Artemis Spanou '14.
Last season, Ezeigbo was the only player in the NEC to rank inside the top eight in both blocks (1.4, 4th) and steals (1.7, 8th). She paced the Colonials in scoring (12.5) and rebounding (7.8), slotting 11th and fourth in the league in those respective categories. The center averaged 15.7 points, 9.7 rebounds, and 2.0 blocks over the NEC Tournament, and posted two of her eight double-doubles in the semifinals and championship. 2018-19 was a season of milestones for Ezeigbo, as she scored a career-high 30 points against LIU Brooklyn (Feb. 25), grabbed her 500th career rebound against Sacred Heart (Jan. 28), and swiped her 100th career steal at Mount St. Mary's (Feb. 16).
Insurmountable Lead
Robert Morris has never lost a game in which it has held the lead at the end of the second half. The Colonials were 22-0 in such situations last season. All-time, RMU is 620-0 when holding the lead at the final whistle.
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