Four days removed from staring straight into their own mortality in the form of a bus fire in Southern Indiana on the way back from a game at Northern Kentucky, and roughly a month after the league-leading Robert Morris team doubled them up in Pennsylvania, 106-53, Indiana University Indianapolis trailed by just 3 at halftime in their second attempt.
But while there aren’t “quarters” in men’s college basketball, if there were, the 3rd quarter would have been owned by the visitors. Paul Zilinskas was weathering a tough shooting night, including 1 for 7 from 3-point range, but he had opened the scoring in the second half with a layup to cut the deficit down to 1.
All Robert Morris did to respond was rattle off 14 points in a row, which proved to be the exact difference in a game they won, 82-68.
12 of the 14 points on that run–including 2 free throws followed by a 3-pointer after IU Indy point guard Alec Millender was issued first a common foul and then a technical for his reaction to the first call–were scored by 6-5 junior guard Josh Omojafo.
The early offense for the Colonials had come from 6-9 sophomore Spaniard Alvaro Folgueiras, but he was slowed down by a 2nd half injury, and Omojafo was more than up for the task of picking up the pace. Omajofo finished with 27 points while shooting 83% from the field and 4 for 6 from 3-point range.
“They don’t have a weakness,” IU Indy coach Paul Corsaro said after the game.”They’re old in terms of experience…They’re the most competitive team in the league, in my opinion. They have toughness. They have physicality. They have athleticism. They have shooting. They have guys who can drive it. They’re just the most complete team in the league, and I think Andy’s a really, really good coach.”
It was a tough ask for a team that was suddenly thrust into more media attention than usual, as well as people reaching out about the weekend scare, and perhaps most of all the inconveniences and extra errands of having lost items they’re used to using in their daily lives.
For Sean Craig, that was his laptop. “I had to borrow my teammate Nathan Dudukovich’s second computer,” he admitted. Craig’s replacement laptop, he had been told but hadn’t yet verified, had apparently arrived during the game against Robert Morris.
Craig’s stat line after an academic week on someone else’s computer? How about 17 points on 3-for-5 3-point shooting, 7 rebounds and 2 steals. He’s been as good as anyone on the roster down the stretch of his team’s season, and that’s after the 6-7 junior forward transferred from Corsaro’s Division II program at University of Indianapolis where Craig didn’t even start most of the time.
Meanwhile, the team wore their yellow “Metros” jerseys, one of the uniform sets still in their possession. Corsaro admitted he had mixed in a bit more “fun” to go along with the “normal business” of a game week. “These kids went through a lot,” he said, “and, you know, there’s a fine line with that.”
The team will have a quick turnaround before Senior Day on Saturday against Wright State at Corteva Coliseum in what will functionally be a double header (the women’s team takes on Detroit Mercy before the men play), but Corsaro also emphasized just “having gratitude that we get to play basketball.”
He said he was also “grateful to be an Indianapolis resident,” as “not an hour has gone by in the last four days” before he would receive yet another supportive text message.
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