The best 20 minutes of the young season, only to be followed by maybe the worst? Saturday, Robert Morris dropped its fifth straight game, losing to Davidson 88-70.
The Colonials, coming off an embarrassing overtime loss to Mount St. Mary’s, opened their contest Saturday shooting 52% from the field, forcing many contested shots on defense with Enoch Cheeks leading the way on that end. RMU forced Davidson to miss their first 8 attempts from beyond the three point line, holding them to 2/10 from three in the first 20 minutes of the contest.
Offensively, the Colonials were lead by Kahliel Spear in the first 20 minutes, scoring 9 points and grabbing 6 defensive rebounds while seeing 17 minutes of action. The Colonials saw the return of Kam Farris and Brandon Stone to their lineup, scoring 11 and 7 points respectively. The first half ended with Robert Morris heading to the locker room facing a 4 point deficit, 35-31; all in all a pretty solid first 20 minutes. That was the good part of the story, the second half quickly turned into a nightmare.
For some reason, the Colonials just were not getting back on defense in transition, they simply just weren’t. The mainstay of an Andy Toole team has been toughness and fight, which the Colonials showed very little of the latter part of the game, allowing 53 points and letting the deficit grow to 25 at one point. The Wildcats, shooting 66% in the second half, going 6/11 from three point land, simply took it to RMU with absolutely no pushback from the Colonials.
It’s time. It is time to figure out who wants to fight, who wants to be here and who does not. RMU, fortunately, faces a few days of rest before jumping into Horizon League play, facing Green Bay Thursday at 8pm followed by Milwaukee on Saturday, both contests on the road.
Who wants it? Who is going to fight through this stretch of adversity and find a way? It is time to find out who wants to still pull the the rope and who is going to let go; there is no place for the folks letting go. It’s time.