The Robert Morris Colonials Men’s Basketball team opened their 2022-23 season on the road again THE Ohio State University Buckeyes. Coming off a vastly underwhelming 2021-22 season, the Colonials had great room for improvement.
Now, nobody in their right mind expected RMU to leave Columbus with a win, but as someone who roots for the Colonials, you just wanted to see some light, some fight, something change for the positive this season. Now, this season, as someone who covers RMU, my goal is to still give you the big picture, but not dwell on the negative as often as previously. So, with that said, Robert Morris showed up, held a lead until about three or so minutes left in the first half. Positive signs. Some fight was there.
POSITIVE!
WELL, that will just about end all the positive for this night. One small positive to touch on was Enoch Cheeks playing pretty well, running the point fairly well, with limited turnovers. Cheeks being able to show up every night, specially nights when Kahliel Spear struggles, will pay quite the dividend down the road.
RMU would end up falling to OSU 91-53, shooting an abysmal 31% from the field and a turnover to assist ratio of 11:6. Averaging almost two turnovers to one assist wont find you in the column against any team in this country, even those squads of five random dudes at your local Y.
Moving on from that is going to be big for the Colonials and thankfully they had a quick turnover to their home opener against Pitt Greensburg two days later. RMU entered their home opener as heavy favorites, and it would be crucial for them to come out and step on the throat of Pitt-Greensburg.
Robert Morris would come out and do just that, starting out hitting five of their first nine shots from the field, with Cheeks hitting three of them. Enoch Cheeks would entertain fans with 8 quick points in the first five minutes of play. RMU pushed the pace really well on offense, and was able to force many bad looks on defense. Hearing the Colonials broadcast team, it sounded like Andy Toole had somewhat of a goal defensively to hold the Bobcats to no more than 25 points in the first half, which they did, holding them to 24. RMU would head into the locker room after a wonderful four point play by freshman start TJ Wainwright, 45-24.
To open the second half, Robert Morris came out with a quick 8-0 run, pushing the lead the 53-24. With the score the way it was, it allowed Toole to work in many different floor combinations to allow him to see who had the best chemistry early on and who would continue to fight in a blowout effort.
All in all, not a bad opening week for RMU but let’s see how they build off this latest effort. The Colonials will welcome West Virginia Wesleyan to the UPMC Events Center on Wednesday and then head to see their friends in Dayton, OH. Can RMU build off this latest blowout and spring it into a 2-0 week?
