Moon Township, Pa. – The RMU men's basketball team continued a four-game homestand at the UPMC Events Center Sunday by stretching its winning streak to three with a 68-63 win over Oakland. The Colonials improved to 11-12 (.478) overall during the 2022-23 season, including 6-6 (.500) in the Horizon League.
MOMENTS THAT MATTERED
Behind a career afternoon from fifth-year forward
Kahliel Spear, the Colonials never trailed in the second half and were able to hold off a late rally by the Golden Grizzlies. Spear provided a dunk in the opening seconds after the break to give the Colonials a 31-27 lead, and he buried three-pointers on consecutive possessions to cap a 9-4 spurt to give RMU its first double-digit advantage, 51-41, with 11:36 remaining. Spear scored a career-high 30 points and also grabbed 11 rebounds, his eighth double-double of the year and 16th of his career, to bolster RMU and in the process became the 15th student-athlete in program history to eclipse both 1,000 points and 500 rebounds.
LATE CHARGE
Senior guard
Michael Green III found sophomore guard
Jackson Last open for a layup at the 6:39 mark of the second half to give RMU a 61-51 edge, but a 12-3 run helped the Golden Grizzlies close to within 66-63 with a minute-and-a-half to go. Jalen Moore, who finished with a team-high 24 for Oakland, contributed six points during the surge. Moore also had an opportunity to tie it with under 15 seconds to play, but his three-pointer was strong, with junior guard
Josh Corbin digging out the rebound before getting fouled. He hit a pair at the stripe with 2.1 seconds to play that sealed the win for the Colonials.
QUOTABLE
"We were able to figure out a way to win the game," RMU Pat Gallagher Head Coach
Andrew Toole said. "I thought we executed offensively really well in the second half. When you have a guy like Jalen Moore, oftentimes the pace is played the way he decides to play it. You're trying to limit all of his play-making ability as best as you can. He's a really, really savvy player, and you see it on the defensive side. He got to the free-throw line today, but when we were able to set our defense I thought we did a decent job on him. Everybody continued to defend, regardless of what was happening on the offensive side. It really was a team effort."
JOIN THE CLUB
Spear's dunk to open the scoring in the second half helped him reach the 1,000-point plateau as a member of the Colonials, as he entered Sunday's game 15 points shy. In five seasons at the NCAA Division I level, Spear has scored 1,187 points, including 1,015 in 73 games at RMU, an average of 13.9 points per contest. The 26th member of the RMU 1,000-Point Club, Spear is the first student-athlete since former guard Matty McConnell to reach the threshold of both 1,000 points and 500 rebounds. McConnell concluded his career with 1,156 points and 520 boards for the Colonials from 2015 to 2019.
QUOTABLE
"We always want to win," Spear said. "We put team first. That's why we put the days in. We're here five hours a day every day to get better as a team. When you see your work pay off and your goals come true, it's really rewarding and humbling. A few years ago before I came here I didn't know if I would have that opportunity. I want to always stay humble. I'm grateful for the opportunity. Without the opportunity I wouldn't have been able to do it. One thing my teammates know they're going to get from me is my all, but it's all opportunity."
INSIDE THE BOX SCORE
RMU finished a perfect 9-for-9 at the free-throw line in the win over Oakland Saturday, including a 5-for-5 performance from Spear. The Colonials concluded January by knocking down 85.5 percent (100-for-117) of their opportunities at the chalk in the first month of 2023 as a team. Spear has enjoyed 2023 thus far, averaging 20.0 points and 8.6 rebounds while shooting 58.1 percent (61-for-105) from the floor, including 47.1 percent (8-for-17) from beyond the arc, and 83.3 percent (30-for-36) at the stripe.
QUOTABLE
"The teams the past few years, we were always competitive, but we would have close games and we'd drop the ball," Spear said. "We just couldn't figure out a way to close it. We almost did that today, but that's the difference. Now we're finding ways to close out those close games. We can feel that in the locker room. As long as we're playing defense, keeping our focus on that has been really important."
UP NEXT
The first half of a four-game homestand complete, the Colonials continue play at the UPMC Events Center Thursday, Feb. 2, with a 7:00 p.m. tip against Northern Kentucky.
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