By Paul Meyer
www.rmucolonials.com
November 18, 2010
Meyer on Morris Link
Moon Township, Pa. - John Dunne last weekend made two general observations when Robert Morris University coach Andrew Toole sought the Saint Peter's coach's advice about playing in one of those ESPN 24-hour college basketball marathon early games.
First, Dunne told Toole, it is not a problem getting the players ready for the early game. The attraction of being able to play on national television is more than enough to get the players jacked. And never mind that tipoff could be at 6:00 a.m. - as was the case last season when Saint Peter's entertained Monmouth at 6:00 a.m. and won 58-34.
Second, Dunne told Toole, "it's the next game'' that can be a problem.
"The issue is the flip side,'' Toole said, relaying what Dunne told him. "It's the next couple of games. Guys play like they're hung over.''
Last season, four days after beating Monmouth, Saint Peter's played Youngstown State at home and lost, 68-56. Three days after that, Saint Peter's played at Long Island and lost, 77-71.
In RMU's case this season, the next two games after their 8 a.m. game at Kent State last Tuesday figured to be tough tests regardless - Duquesne at the Charles L. Sewall Center Friday evening and then at Pitt next Tuesday.
However, perhaps Toole and the Colonials won't have to deal with that post-early game letdown issue - because they might have already gone through it.
"Absolutely,'' Toole said.
At Kent State, the Colonials, coming off a 55-30 dismantling of Saint Peter's last Saturday, played extremely well in building a 35-21 lead late in the first half before taking a 12-point lead into the locker room at halftime.
But when the Colonials came back out for the second half?
It was as if they already were into that "flip side'' thing.
They missed their first seven field goal attempts. After a tip-in basket by Russell Johnson, the Colonials missed another six straight field goal attempts.
That set the tone for a second half of missed opportunities and defensive lapses that cost RMU a 62-59 loss.
The Colonials shot 44.8 percent from the field in the first half. Had they continued at that pace in the first seven minutes or so in the second half, they might have been able to put away the Golden Flashes.
They didn't, though, and Toole had some thoughts about why.
"I think it was a combination of us maybe starting to believe that we were a pretty good team, having played 60 good minutes of basketball,'' Toole said, referring to the Saint Peter's game and the first half at Kent State. "I'm not sure if we truly believed how hard the second half would be and that we needed to play an entire 20 minutes.
"We talked to our guys about the way this day would work and that we needed their full efforts from 5:30 in the morning until 10:30 in the morning. Unfortunately, we got from about 5:30 a.m. until about 9:30. We needed an extra hour and we didn't get that.''
To their credit, the Colonials steadied a bit and still held a 48-42 lead with nine minutes. But they couldn't overcome a dismal second-half shooting performance. They were just 10-for-40 from the field in that stretch, including 2-for-15 from beyond the arc.
"We took 40 shots in the second half,'' Toole said. "I'd say probably 36 or 37 were pretty good ones. I'd say probably 25 of them were great ones. We had some shots in the second half where there was no one within 10 feet of our guys. It's just disappointing that you can't knock those down because your team needs you to knock those down and you have to step up and shoot it with confidence.''
For the game, Karon Abraham, Velton Jones, Gary Wallace and Johnson were a combined 2-for-19 from beyond the arc, including 1-for-12 in the second half.
"They're the guys we rely on to make shots and help our offense,'' Toole said. "When they're not making shots, it makes it difficult.''
Those second-half misfires could have contributed to a defensive letdown by the Colonials, who in their first 60 minutes of this season held their opponents to 53 points and 22 percent shooting from the field.
"We've talked a lot over the last few years about not allowing your offense to affect your defense,'' Toole said, "but I would definitely say there was some head-hanging going on, some guys being deflated by a missed open shot and I think it hurt their confidence overall.
"I think sometimes Gary Wallace looked tentative to shoot it after he missed his first few. Russell Johnson had a couple open three's that he passed up. Kent State defended the paint. They did a good job. They didn't let us get to the rim, and you have to make them pay by making some outside shots. If you can't do that, you can't win.''
The loss seemed to bother Abraham a great deal. The sophomore guard, who had 13 points but was just 4-of-12 from the field, was quite somber during the post-game interview session.
"I played terribly,'' Abraham said quietly. "I didn't do what I did in the first half - the details, the little things on defense. I let my team down.''
Toole wasn't overly concerned about Abraham's poor shooting. But he was bothered by Abraham's defense.
"I thought his defensive effort was really poor, and I told him that after the game,'' Toole said. "His position defense, his ability to help his teammates on defense, was very poor. I'm never going to not trust his ability to shoot. I'm more concerned about the lack of defensive pressure and some of the things that he broke down on defensively than I am about his offense.''
Was Toole surprised at Abraham's defensive letdown?
Toole took several seconds upon being asked that question to frame his response.
"No,'' he said. "Because a lot of mistakes that were made in the game he's made in practice. We tried to address those in practice and I guess we didn't do a good enough job of getting that message across. But I'm confident that he's going to watch the film and he's going to figure that stuff out. Sometimes you need to get smacked in the face before you actually start to really realize that those plays need to be made for your team's success.''
Until their second-half misfortunes, the Colonials seemed quite fine with their opportunity to play at 8:00 a.m. on ESPN.
"We've had practices at eight o'clock in the morning, so we've been prepared to play early,'' Wallace said. "It wasn't really a big deal. It was different, but the coaches did a good job of preparing us.''
"It was fine with me,'' Johnson said. "Whenever it's game time, I'm ready.''
"I don't think it is much different,'' Toole said. "It's a basketball game. Our guys were more lively on the bus coming over here at 5:45 in the morning than they are at 7:30 at night sometimes. For a seven o'clock game on the road, we have breakfast at 10 in the morning and it's like they roll in at 9:59. We had breakfast this morning at 5:40. I came down at 5:30 and there were seven guys down there.''
Toole then offered this observation about the early start.
"I don't know, maybe there is the difference that they're too excited, they're too anxious, they're playing on national television, they're too jacked up, they're too fired up and they don't come out and play it like a game they normally would,'' he said. "I don't know. But once that ball went up, it seemed like just another game regardless of the time, and if you watched us play in the first half, you would have thought that who cares that it's at 8:00 a.m. And then the second half we didn't maintain that effort.''
Toole said he'd have no problem with playing another 8:00 a.m. game next season.
"We're Robert Morris University and any time you can play on ESPN on national television at 8:00 a.m. when 40 percent of the country gets up to watch SportsCenter and they get to see your program it helps your program,'' he said. "The first half really helped our program. The second half probably equaled everything out.
"At a school like ours, you're trying to get any (exposure) you can. You're trying to get exposure for your program. You're trying to sell (recruits), 'Hey, we play on ESPN. Come play for us.' So all that stuff helps.
"And then you get to test your team. We learned so much from this game it's incredible. We're going to be able to take that second half and hold it over our guys' heads for weeks now - about their breakdown, about their letdown, about shooting the ball with confidence. We have nine sophomores and freshmen, so that was an incredible learning experience.''
One that Toole hopes pays dividends as quickly as Friday evening against Duquesne.
"It's a city game. It's a rivalry game. Our guys are going to be excited to play it,'' Toole said. "We haven't beaten them since I've been here, and I think our guys are hungry to get a win against Duquesne. Hopefully they'll learn from the last 20 minutes of (the Kent State) game and realize that you have to play a full game in order to get the victory.''
