This felt like the Robert Morris Colonials best chance to advance deep into the Horizon League Tournament since joining the league, however, their 2022-23 season ends in depressing fashion.
Thursday evening, RMU headed up north to face off against the Cleveland State Vikings in the opening round of the Horizon League Tournament. Robert Morris, coming off at pretty brutal loss to IUPUI to end their regular season, came out of the gates with great energy on Thursday. The Colonials, who lost both regular season matchups by a combined eleven points to Cleveland State, put some fear into the Vikings early.
RMU would use an early 7-0 run to come out with a 13-6 lead, which included an emphatic dunk, courtesy of Michael Green III and Khaliel Spear. This would be a game of runs, as CSU would counter Robert Morris with a 9-2 run to even up the contest at 15. RMU would then respond with a 13-5 run to go head 28-20 and would ultimately lead at the break, 32-28.
The second would open with Jackson Last and Josh Corbin connecting on back to back long balls and The Colonials would hold its biggest lead, 47-35 after Enoch Cheeks connected on a jumper. RMU would hang on to their double digit lead with just over eight minutes left in the game. This is when I wanted to get the pulse of Robert Morris fans on social media, and it almost felt more like fear than anything else, after all RMU seems to be the worst team in the nation holding a lead late in games.
RMU and CSU would go back and forth the last 8 minutes of the game, with The Colonials yet again holding a lead with under a minute to go. RMU, leading 61-57 with 1:36 left when Cheeks would miss a jumper, which was followed by a big bucket by Tristan Enaruna with :51 left to play.
Here we go again.
Robert Morris, who not once trailed in regulation and who held a 10-point lead with eight minutes left, leads by two, with the ball and under a minute to play; what could go wrong?
Well, A LOT, if you have watched any RMU basketball this year, could and would go wrong. A turnover with :26 left to play and then a foul by Last with :07 left, lead to Drew Lowder tying the game at the free throw line. The Colonials would still have a chance to win the game, with the ball and one last possession, and to sum up the RMU season, Green turned it over at the buzzer and to OT we went.
OT was pretty back and forth early on, but Cleveland State would find its groove pull away with a 75-70 win and is now two wins away from dancing. RMU just seemingly could not get out of its own way far too often this season, and it bit them in the most gut punching fashion Thursday. The Robert Morris career of program star Spear ends him tallying eight points and Cheeks with only five.
So many times this season, RMU was carried by these two and it was noted, they were not going to anywhere if those two didn’t show out. This was the best chance for Robert Morris, with a talent like Spear, to make a deep run in March, but now, it all ends in a depressing, gut-wrenching way.
The Colonials failing to finish off games this season was a big problem, and now, that problem has caused them to be on their couch for selection Sunday. Where do they go from here, what can they do to finally make the BIG jump in this league?
My season review for RMU will be out in the coming weeks, and to be quite frank, it will not be kind and why should it be?
