The very odd, hard to understand 2022-23 season for the Robert Morris men’s basketball season continues on. The Colonials have had two three-game losing streaks, one four game losing streak and three three-game winning streaks. This might be the most confusing, hard to understand team in RMU history.
After getting blitzed by Wright State, losing a heart breaker at the end to Cleveland State, the Colonials rebounded again Purdue Fort Wayne last Sunday. Now, with pretty much every game that’s left is a must win if they want to host an opening round tournament game, nobody could guess what Robert Morris would do next. And who would be the one to step up might be even more shocking.
The Colonials have typically gotten the majority of their scoring from their two stars, Enoch Cheeks and all-league stud Kahliel Spear. Now yes, Stephaun Walker and Josh Corbin have chipped in here and there as well, but for RMU to go anywhere this spring, they need more.
I know from following so many Colonial fans on social media, our favorite punching bag has been sophomore Jackson Last. Many have questioned how or why he has earned a starting role. At times, he just simply has looked out of place on the court, but this past week, he pretty much shut all of us up, and I for one am beyond glad to see it.
Last, like a good amount of the Colonials, had a very rough start to the season averaging a shade under four points from the Dayton match-up until the Milwaukee game on January 19th. At that point, You could argue Last began to turn it up a notch, but it more or less went under the radar due to up and down nature of the Robert Morris season.
With the Colonials as mentioned above, facing must win after must win, they would begin this past week welcoming league punching bag, Green Bay. RMU would come out little sluggish again in the first half, but would ramp things up with a big second half, knocking down 48% from the field while holding the Phoenix to 37%. Last would play a big role in this one, contributing 10 points, 9 rebounds and 3 assists to go along with 18 and 13 from Cheeks and Green III.
Next would be a fairly large opportunity for Robert Morris as Milwaukee came to the UPMC Events Center on Saturday. The Panthers came into the game 12-5 and RMU 8-9, so on paper, it didn’t look like much of a contest. The Colonials, for once, came out on fire, knocking down 53% from three and would head to the break up by 11, 42-31. Now, the bigger question would be, could they finish this one off for one of their more impressive wins?
Now, this would be the day where Last would in a way, get the LAST laugh. The sophomore who only had three previous double-digit performances this season coming into this week, after scoring 10 against Green Bay, would yet again light up Milwaukee. Last, who score 14 in the last contest against them, would torch them for 16 on Saturday in only 20 minutes of action; talk about efficient scoring!
The Colonials pull every further away in the second half and bounce the Panthers 80-60, lead by a co-leading scorer, JACKSON LAST.
Like it’s been mentioned, Last has taken a good amount of heat from the RMU faithful this season, but right now he has more than stepped up. In this most recent three game Colonial winning streak, Last has scored 8,10, 16, averaging 11.33 a game. If Robert Morris wants to make any kind of noise, they need more than just the usual cast of characters to contribute. If this is the Last we are going to get the rest of the season, the horizon looks like it could be beautiful for the Colonials.
