There must be something so daunting for the Colonials about playing on the road in the Horizon League.
Perhaps, their opponents live comfortably on their personal hardwood. Or maybe it’s the travel schedule that they haven’t truly adjusted to facing teams on the regular in the Midwest instead of the Northeast.
Whatever it is, there’s a strange mystique about the Colonials flailing struggles on the road.
With Robert Morris finally trending in the right direction with three wins in four games, including its first conference road victory of the season at IUPUI, the Colonials started to make some ground in the standings.
As quickly as the Colonials found their groove, they immediately reversed course, dropping consecutive road contests.
The losses, albeit to stiff competition in Cleveland State and most recently Oakland on Thursday, moves the Colonials to 1-5 away from Moon Township when it comes to conference matchups this season.
That now puts the Colonials at a meager 7-27 in four years of Horizon League road action.
You can certainly live with some of the losses if you were hovering around .500 play in away games, but at some point, the Colonials need to step out of the shadow and defeat their road demons.
The lone victory at IUPUI this season forecasted the perfect energy and effort the Colonials needed to take care of the Jaguars.
Suddenly, the Colonials crawled back into their shell and lost that sense of urgency and togetherness that was on full display in Indianapolis.
Against Cleveland State, the Colonials opened the contest shooting a miserable 0 for 8. They did, however, respond and led for over 20 minutes, including their biggest lead at 10 points.
The momentum that the Colonials built slowly but surely shrank as their post defense failed them with Tristan Enaruna exposing any weaknesses as he piled on 28 points in a two-point victory.
With the loss to the Vikings, the Wolstein woes blew up in the Colonials’ face yet again, never defeating the Vikings in Cleveland since the transition as a conference foe.
Days later, the Colonials once more, did not have an answer to stop a red-hot scorer for the opposition. This time it was Oakland’s knock-down shooter Blake Lampman that buried a career-high eight triples.
Lampman raced out cashing in on four treys before the first media timeout of the game. The sharpshooter’s ability to hit beyond the arc made it glaringly obvious that the Colonials’ perimeter defense was defunct. Even on shots that didn’t fall from outside, the Colonials were called for fouling the shooter on multiple occasions.
Oakland’s largest margin sat at 20 points before the Colonials narrowed in with a 12-0 run. But, the Golden Grizzlies were just two steps ahead every time and withstood any force from RMU.
Throughout the season, the Colonials’ defense has been suspect, but the last two games have shown far too many breakdowns and soft coverage.
It also didn’t help that the Colonials threw up plenty of unnecessary shots, along with several players going o-fer from 3-point land.
The Colonials need to revert back to what led to it’s recent success: High-energy basketball and unselfish play.
An impending matchup with still winless Detroit Mercy on Saturday may seem appetizing, but the Colonials absolutely cannot take the Titans lightly.
Just a few weeks ago, the Titans took RMU to double-overtime and gave the Colonials a big-time scare and almost put their season in jeopardy.
According to the Colonials road track record, this game will not be a cake walk, and of course the Titans know that they have what it takes to pull out a victory against the Colonials.
