With less than 20 seconds to go in regulation, Robert Morris trailed last year’s Cinderella story, Oakland, by 3.
“Coach Kampe and his team have been here,” Robert Morris’s 15th year head coach Andrew Toole said after the game. “They know what it takes, you know? I thought they came out, and they really set the tone. And they were the aggressors. I thought they did a great job of executing their plan.”
The #1 seed had trailed the #6 seed for more than 27 minutes in the game, but Toole was making those comments with the relief of knowing his team already has another game to play after winning an overtime thriller, 79-76. They’ll play the winner of Youngstown State and Cleveland State in the 2025 Barbasol Horizon League Basketball Championship on Tuesday at 7 p.m. ET.
March college basketball classics deserve worthy highlight reels, and while there was plenty to choose from in this one, the top award has to go to Kam Woods, the Robert Morris guard who is on his 5th college basketball team, including the roster of last year’s North Carolina State Final Four team.
He had the ball in the left corner off a scramble situation and the situation getting desperate for his team. He proceeded to drive the basketball baseline straight into the chest of Oakland’s 6-6 big, Allen Mukeba, under the basket. Mukeba had arguably been the game’s Most Valuable Player (he scored 18 points to go along with 3 assists and 4 rebounds in the game) to that moment.
After the initial contact, Woods somehow had the instinct and presence of mind to quickly pivot away from Mukeba and while he was tossing it up over his own head, Mukeba reached forward, and an official called a foul just as the ball was going into the basket.
“Just the free throw,” Woods said with a sly grin. “Like, if you’ve been watching us, you know, I’ve been missing those lately, so that play was the hardest part.”
Oh, and the play was also Mukeba’s 5th foul, which meant he had to watch the final frame from the sideline after Oakland couldn’t get anything out of their final possession in regulation.
To be fair, Mukeba wasn’t the only key player in the game who had to watch the overtime period. Alvaro Folgueiras, the league’s Player of the Year, had fouled out not long before Mukeba did.
“We’ve seen it all year long, you know?” said Toole about having to play long stretches without Folgueiras. “I don’t know if there’s many teams across the country that have had as many guys be their leading scorer at some point in time during the season…Obviously, we love having Alvaro out there. But we’ve had times where he’s been in foul trouble…and guys have picked up the slack.”
One of the guys who picked up some slack against Oakland was Ismael Plet, the 6-8 graduate student from the Netherlands. Plet shot 5 of 6 from the field for 10 points to go along with 5 rebounds in 23 minutes of action.
“I thought he had an excellent game,” Toole said. “You know, obviously, we’re probably not sitting here winning this game without the contributions of Ish tonight.”
As for the Golden Grizzlies, they drop to 16-18 on the season, and head coach Greg Kampe wore the situation on his face.
“This is the worst time of the year for anybody when you really like your team and you like coaching them and it’s over…It’s a hard thing, really hard thing because, you know, I’ve done this for so long, and yeah, you want championships…you want it so that those guy can experience that, but for me as the coach, I don’t get to coach them anymore.”
