RMU Colonials Went from Cinderella to Invisible. Could Magic Happen Again?

ROBERT MORRIS BASKETBALL COACH ANDREW TOOLE | PHOTO COURTESY OF ROBERT MORRIS ATHLETICS

They were the type of team, and authored the type of underdog story, that annually defines March Madness a season ago, but it still didn’t take Robert Morris long to go from Cinderella to invisible.

“The next morning,” head coach Andy Toole remembers. “We were in the hotel in Cleveland and you’re having conversations about percent chance that a guy’s going to come back.

“When you hear it’s less than five percent, you know guys are going to be moving.”

That was the morning after Toole’s Colonials had put a legitimate scare into No. 2-seed Alabama, the morning after No. 15-seed Robert Morris had led, 65-64, with 7:10 left in the second half before Alabama eventually survived and advanced, 90-81.

Toole’s reward for his team having won its last 10 games in succession, and 15 of its last 16 on the way to earning the right to represent the Horizon League in the NCAA Tournament, was to watch all but one of his players depart either via graduation or the transfer portal.

That might sound horrific, but to Toole it’s become the cost of doing business in the Transfer Portal Era.

“Last year we had 10 new guys, this year we have 12,” he notes. “Adds a degree of difficulty to the challenge.

“It’s also kind of become normalized in college athletics. When it first happened to us in 2015 and we lost a kid to Clemson, that was like a little bit of an anomaly, and it was only happening to the mid-majors. Now, it’s just a complete reshuffling of the deck every year.”

In his 16th season at RMU, Toole is at ease with the pros and cons of what college basketball has become. It’s not necessarily the way he’d want it, but he’s comfortable playing the hand he’s been dealt.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ROBERT MORRIS ATHLETICS

Through the conclusion of practice on Wednesday, that had been done well enough for RMU to stand at 18-10 overall and 10-7 in the Horizon, which was good enough to tie for third place. The new-look Colonials had announced their presence with authority early, via an 81-79 overtime win on Nov. 6 at Drake, one of college basketball’s most respected and most successful programs playing out of a mid-major conference (the Missouri Valley). The victory snapped Drake’s 49-game home winning streak against non-conference opponents.

The most recent statement was made on Sunday, when the Colonials overwhelmed Oakland (second in the Horizon), 93-69, for their fourth straight win.

Up next is a Sunday visit to first-place Wright State, a team Robert Morris handled, 72-66, on Feb. 4.

The more things change, the more they remain the same, apparently.

Robert Morris still has work to do before it can make a triumphant return to the NCAA Tournament via the three games left on the regular-season schedule and the looming Horizon League Tournament (where another NCAA bid would have to be secured).

But had Toole been offered the chance at the season’s outset to fast-forward to late February and a place where his team is performing as it has of late, he’d have taken it.

“Without a doubt,” he says. “When you have 12 new guys on your team, everybody is trying to figure it out on the fly. To be in a position here, where we are in contention, we are in the mix, I think that’s where every program and team wants to be.”

The difference between contention and redemption is execution, of course, but it’s also intangible, specifically the commitment among individuals to prioritize the team.

Toole remembers the moment he started to suspect his team had enough of the latter last season as well as he does the details of RMU’s inspiring near-miss against Alabama.

“Probably when we were at Green Bay last year [on Jan. 17],” he said. “We started awful, we were down a bunch. We made a little bit of a run late in the first half and kind of had a little bit of a ‘Come to Jesus’ halftime. And we came out and we went on a 28-0 run and from there on out, we kind of were just on a roll.

“I think guys really decided winning is going to be the most important thing to us, and we’re gonna figure out how we can contribute to it. And for the rest of the year you didn’t ever sit there and think, ‘Are these guys gonna do the right thing? Are they gonna be about the right stuff?’ It was just a known fact and it was just going to be a matter of ‘could’ we execute well enough, could we get enough stops, could we make enough shots.”

A return to March Madness, while far from assured, may yet be within the Colonials’ grasp.

“We’ve moved in the right direction but I wouldn’t say I’m a complete believer yet,” Toole assesses. “I’m cautiously optimistic.

“It’s much better off than deciding that there’s no chance, right? I’ll take that when I can.”