Moon Township, Pa. – The RMU men's basketball team concluded its 2020-21 season Thursday, dropping an 83-73 decision to Detroit Mercy in the first round of the 2021 Horizon League Tournament at Calihan Hall in Detroit, Mich. The Colonials finish the year with an overall record of 4-15 (.211).
MOMENTS THAT MATTERED
For the second straight game against the Titans (12-9), RMU grabbed an early lead, 9-3, after a layup from senior forward
Charles Bain. UDM responded behind the play of Antoine Davis, the leading scorer in the Horizon League. He scored 24 points in the first half, including 15 during a 24-5 run that allowed the Titans to grab a 27-14 advantage at the 4:11 mark of the first half. Davis finished with 46 points, a Horizon League Tournament record. It broke the old scoring record of 45 set by Byron Larkin of Xavier in 1987.
QUOTABLE
"Obviously it's a tough way to end the year," RMU Pat Gallagher Head Coach
Andrew Toole said. "I wanted the season to continue if we could, and I thought we battled. It was symbolic of the majority of our year. We just weren't able to get enough stops. We'll get to work with a full offseason and start preparing guys for what it takes to be successful in a really tough league. We have some tough-minded dudes, we just need some of them to perform better."
A GLIMPSE
Junior forward
Kahliel Spear scored 20 of his career-high 22 points in the second half to lead the Colonials. He also added five rebounds, three steals and a pair of blocks in becoming the key post option for RMU after Bain suffered an injury. The transfer from Bucknell who was deemed eligible by the NCAA in mid-December, Spear led RMU with 23 blocks in 18 games, an average of 1.28 per contest. In his 10 games as a starter, Spear produced averages of 11.3 points and 6.3 boards while shooting 55.8 percent (48-for-86) from the field.
QUOTABLE
"(Kahliel's) really talented and has the ability to be a high-level player," Toole said. "When he's engaged and focused, you see what he can do, because he can really impact a game on both ends of the floor. We're looking forward to him having a good offseason, whether that's working on his game or the weight room, to help us win games moving forward."
HOW ABOUT THAT
Also reaching double figures for RMU against Detroit Mercy were guards
Jon Williams and
Kam Farris. Williams, a senior, finished a dime shy of a double-double with 17 points and nine assists, while Farris scored 15 points. The duo combined to shoot 7-for-13 from beyond the arc, with Williams finishing 4-for-6. Thanks to the four three-pointers, Williams pushed his career total in triples to 209, tying his brother,
Josh Williams (2018-20), for sixth all-time in program history for three-point field goals.
DID YOU KNOW?
The 46 points scored by Antoine Davis are the most scored by an opposing player in 11 years under Toole. The previous high came in 2010-11, Toole's first year at the helm of the Colonials, when James Johnson of Quinnipiac scored 38 points. The most points, however, by an opposing player against RMU in school history is 51 by James Steipler of James Madison, which came Jan. 27, 1979, the program's third year as an NCAA Division I program.
Photo Credit: Detroit Mercy Athletics
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