There are plenty of deficiencies to this year’s Robert Morris men’s basketball team that can equate to the 20-loss season.
As the Colonials’ extended their season-worse five-game losing streak Wednesday against Northern Kentucky, those shortcomings came to a head, especially in the first 20 minutes of play.
Dreadful shooting, turnovers and defensive breakdowns allowed the Norse to jump on the Colonials for a 42-23 halftime lead.
“Poor starts have certainly been a part of that. Not able to guard the ball has been a part of that,” head coach Andy Toole said about his team’s slow starts.
Against Northern Kentucky – now the fourth-seeded team in the Horizon League standings – the Colonials stumbled out of the starters block, going 0 for 7 from the field in the first five and a half minutes.
Even as the Colonials pulled nearly even, a trio of turnovers provided the Norse to string together another 8-0 run in the opening 11 minutes of the game.
“We didn’t have very good fight tonight,” Toole said. “That was why the game got to where it got. 19-13 at the under eight media timeout of the first half, I thought we were kind of competing a little bit even though the offense hasn’t been going for us. We had some good looks early that we did not make.”
While the Colonials couldn’t buy a bucket, their defensive game started to slip up as well.
“Unfortunately, what’s been a little bit of the story of us – and it’s my fault entirely — as soon as the offense isn’t flowing, our defensive effort takes a little bit of a dive. That’s kind of how the first half finished and then we weren’t able to really recover in the second half,” Toole said.
Rough starts have become too commonplace during the current five-game slide that the Colonials are on.
- On Feb. 14, a 10-2 run by Youngstown State propelled the Penguins ahead by 11 halfway through the first. RMU made just 6 of their first 19 shots (31.5 percent), while YSU hit 10 of 16 (62.5 percent).
- On Feb. 17, Wright State had another one of their shooting clinics against RMU. Before the Colonials could knock down their first field goal of the game, the Raiders ran out to a 19-2 lead on a perfect 8 for 8 from the floor. RMU, on the other hand, came up empty, shooting 0 for 7 in the first five minutes.
- On Feb. 22, the Colonials sprung together its least productive first half of the season with 19 points. RMU connected on a mere 8 of 30 shots (26.6 percent) in the opening 20 minutes.
- On Feb. 15, RMU once again trailed heading into halftime by double digits. While the Colonials orchestrated one of their better first halves as of late offensively, they allowed the Vikings to score at will, hitting 17 of 32 (53.1 percent).
“At Youngstown, I don’t think we were competing at the level we needed to; Wright State was a no show; Here against Oakland, didn’t think we had that same fight; Cleveland State in the second half, we had that fight, but we were down 11 at the half, so it makes it harder to come back,” Toole said about the recent stretch.
Back focusing on the most recent loss, the Colonials limped through the opening half, and it had much to do with NKU’s zone.
“Their zone is a challenging one,” Toole said. “We didn’t seem very comfortable in the first half with the attack of it. We couldn’t really create any advantage. We weren’t able to really look down the court. There was times we had guys wide open under the basket and we didn’t see them.”
That also had a hand in the high turnover rate with the Colonials registering 12 in the first half. Some of those were self-inflicted wounds, especially with errant passes, but it could’ve been caused by the Norse’s defensive scheme.
“We just threw the ball to them on so many occasions,” Toole said. “You’re taking guys out of the game and saying, ‘what did you see right there? You literally threw the ball to the opponent.’ If that’s not the definition of discomfort, I don’t know what is. I’m sure as we go back and watch, there’s probably an effective way for the ball to get where it needed to get to.”
It also didn’t help that RMU had an elite player in Marques Warrick on one of his scoring rampages, dropping in 20 points in the opening half.
“He’s given us fits since his freshman year,” Toole said. “You try to do things to disrupt him a little bit. We got to be high alert against him and then there’s times when we have breakdowns on him, and we leave him open and he’s too good when you leave him open.”
As the Colonials stared down a 19-point deficit at halftime, they returned to the floor a much later than normal for the final 20 minutes of play. Something was certainly said inside the locker room, however, Toole kept in brief when asked following the game.
“The lack of pride was the message,” he said.
Whatever was thrown their way in the locker room, it didn’t really matter as not a lot changed for the Colonials in the second half against the Norse.
“Things got a little bit hard and no one really stepping up to rally everybody together and say, ‘hey, let’s keep fighting, it’s a six-point game.’ Who cares what the final score is if you have one more point. I don’t know if we need to get style points or score in the 70 or 80s in order to make ourselves feel like we’re accomplished. Good teams don’t care, they just want to win,” Toole said.
One more regular season game awaits the Colonials on Saturday. There’s a lot to improve upon in a hurry with the Horizon League Tournament rapidly approaching starting on March 5.
Time is dwindling and, so we’ve got to try and use any amount of time to respect the game and play the rest of the way,” Toole said.
