By Paul Meyer
www.rmucolonials.com
Jan. 27, 2011 

Meyer on Morris Link

Moon Township, Pa. - This is one of those "That was then, this is now'' tales.

The "then'' was March 10, 2010. The "now'' is Jan. 27, 2011, and the rematch at Quinnipiac.

First, though, back then …

Robert Morris at Quinnipiac. The Northeast Conference championship game. Robert Morris was 22-11. Quinnipiac was 23-8 and 14-0 at home. Each team had finished 15-3 in the NEC in the regular season, but Quinnipiac beat RMU, 87-79, at the Charles L. Sewall Center, Feb. 20, in the team's only regular- season meeting and thus had the tiebreaker, earning it the home game for the championship contest at TD Bank Sports Center.

The Colonials arrived about two hours before tipoff.

"The doors weren't open yet, but the entire front of the building was packed with their students just waiting to get in,'' RMU head coach Andrew Toole said. "And then as soon as the doors opened, kids were sprinting into the building. It was such an awesome atmosphere.''

Capacity at the TD Bank Sports Center is listed as 3,254. That evening, 3,607 fans ran to their seats, which were on a first-come, first-served basis.

"I couldn't hear (during) the whole game,'' guard Gary Wallace said. "The energy in that building was just crazy.''

"The fans were just going crazy,'' guard Karon Abraham said. "We were barely able to hear ourselves talking. It was unbelievable. It was one of the most crazy experiences I've ever had.''

Guard Treadwell Lewis, who went to high school about 25 minutes from Quinnipiac, remembered a ball going off forward Russell Johnson's leg during pregame warm-ups.

"It rolled right over to the student section,'' Lewis said. "As he picked it up, everyone was yelling at him and getting in his face a little bit.''

"The atmosphere was ridiculous,'' guard Velton Jones said. "The fans were crazy.''

Jones remembered something else about that raucous evening.

"Our toughness on defense,'' he said. "And the way we had to defend each play just to get out of that building with a win.''

The Colonials got out to a 10-4 lead in the first eight minutes. Quinnipiac plodded back and had a 15-10 lead five minutes later. Soon after, Abraham's trey made it 16-13. And from that point on the teams rarely were separated by more than two or three points.

"I remember how intense every single pass, every single shot, every single rebound was,'' Toole said. "Coaches always talk about breaking games down possession by possession. This game, every pass was a battle, and you had to win the battle of passing it from the point to the wing to start your offense, just like you had to battle passing it from the wing to the point or from the wing to the post. Everything was so hotly contested. It was a fun game to be part of because of that.''

"Everybody was playing as hard as they could to win the championship,'' Jones said. "They were up in us. We were (up) in them. We were making it hard to make open passes, to make open shots, and they were doing the same to us.''

"Shots weren't falling for both teams, but both teams were grinding it out on defense,'' Wallace said. "It was fun.''

"It was so intense, just back and forth,'' Abraham said. "Either we were defending to get a stop or we were trying to execute perfectly to make winning plays to win the game. There was so much pressure and tension.''

"We were just going back and forth and you could tell that nobody on our team was quitting,'' Lewis said. "Everyone just kept going, kept going, kept rebounding. If they got second shots, we were still fighting on the boards. Or if we missed, we would keep going, trying to get a second shot. I was like, 'If we keep doing that, we're going to win the game.'''

Midway through the second half, Wallace hit a three-pointer that put the Colonials ahead, 39-38.

"I was open, and I told myself, 'No matter how close (the defender) was, I was going to shoot it,''' Wallace said. "I got the ball and let it go and it went in.''

Just over two minutes later, Wallace made another field goal, giving the Colonials a lead they would just once more down the stretch.

"It was like a broken play and I was kind of like dribbling around and just happened to get free,'' Wallace said.

With two minutes left, Abraham made a jump shot to put RMU up, 48-46. Justin Rutty's two free throws 20 seconds later tied the game for the final time.

And then, with 78 seconds remaining, Jones made a huge basket, draining a floater from the middle of the lane to give the Colonials a 50-48 lead.

A little back story on that.

In the Colonials' final regular-season game at Mount St. Mary's, Jones had a chance to make a similar play with 26 seconds left and the score tied at 61.

"I got called for a walk and we lost (63-61),'' Jones said. "Coach Toole told me, 'Forget about it. You'll be all right. Your chance will come again.'''

Jones had no idea when that chance would come again.

"But it came in that (Quinnipiac) game,'' Jones said. "(Abraham) had the ball at the top (of the key), and I was screaming at him, 'K! K!' I got the ball and drove right and had a chance to get it up and I just floated it in. All I could think about was (Toole) saying that to me.''

"He made a hesitation move and put it up,'' Lewis said. "He made a big-time play.''

Over the next 70 seconds, Quinnipiac had two opportunities to at least tie the score but missed two field goal attempts. With seven seconds left, Dallas Green's two free throws gave RMU a 52-48 lead, but Quinnipiac's James Johnson countered with two free throws four seconds later.

It was 52-50.

A second later, Abraham, an 85 percent free throw shooter who on that night led RMU with 16 points, was fouled and went to the line with the opportunity to flat-out clinch the championship for the Colonials.

"On my way to the line, I'm like, 'OK, it's free throws,''' Abraham said. "Then once I got to the line, I started thinking, 'I'm really at the line as a freshman about to win an NEC championship in my first year here and then be able to go to the NCAA tournament.' I guess I just let that distract me. I just missed both of them. It was very hard. I learned from it. I was mad at myself, of course, but you have to go through experiences like that to grow and move on.''

Johnson grabbed the rebound after the second miss and had time for a desperation shot from well beyond half-court.

Jones watched the shot.

"I was hoping Dallas didn't foul him because Dallas was real close to him,'' Jones said. "But I was watching the ball, and I saw it didn't really have a chance.''

Johnson's shot missed, and the Colonials had won an incredibly emotional game. And they'd won their second consecutive NEC championship.

Jones' immediate thought?

"We did it! We did it!'' he said. "All the hard work we did and everything we went through throughout the year (had) all paid off at the end. It just so happened we were the tougher team that night.''

Lewis watched wide-eyed, thinking about …

"The buzzer going off, everyone running on the floor, seeing all the emotions of all the different guys, all the hard work that was put into that, how the game was so close and back and forth we didn't know what was going to happen, the game being in jeopardy for a while and then the buzzer going off and seeing the faces of all the guys you work with every single day and finally knowing you achieved something,'' Lewis said. "It was awesome.''

Wallace's thoughts?

"I think I was still in shock from the previous year,'' he said, referring to Green's last-second shot against Mount St. Mary's at the Sewall Center that gave RMU the NEC championship in 2009. "I'm thinking, 'Man, we did it again. We're going back to the tournament again.' I don't know. People always say in those moments it's like, 'OK, we've done it! We've done it!' To me, it was like the total opposite. It was like, 'Man, did we really do this again?'

"I think sometimes it still hasn't hit me. Like the (NCAA) tournament games. I look back like, 'We were there! I played in a tournament game!' It's a feeling you can't really explain. You just had to be there.''
And Abraham?

"If (Johnson's) shot would have gone in, those (missed) free throws would have been a burden on my back because I could have iced the game,'' he said. "It would have been done. But the basketball gods were with us and didn't allow that shot to go in.''

His thoughts at the buzzer?

"Honestly, I didn't have any type of emotion,'' Abraham said. "I was just shocked. I was like, 'OK. This is a break because I just missed two free throws.' I was mad about that. Then I was just looking and watching everybody else and the crowd. Their crowd just left, and all our fans just started coming on the court.

"I just watched the seniors, how excited and happy they were to get their last championship and be able to go to the NCAA tournament one more time. It was like, 'Wow! It's amazing to be a part of this team and to help them feel this.'

"Now it's like we have a chance to do it again. I'm getting that hunger and that excitement to go back and do it again.''

Which brings us to the "now'' part of this tale. The rematch.

Once again, Thursday night's game is the only regular-season meeting between RMU and Quinnipiac.

The Colonials are 5-3 in the NEC. Quinnipiac is 4-4 and struggling a bit because Rutty, who averages 16.6 points and 9.9 rebounds per game, has missed the past seven games because of bone chips in his elbow. Quinnipiac has gone 3-4 in his absence and has lost its past three games.

Some reports have Rutty out for another two weeks. However, there are whispers that Quinnipiac will try to get him back sooner, even if he can play only 10 or so minutes per game.

Is Toole preparing a game plan as though Rutty might play some Thursday night?

"We're going to prepare as if he's playing because we don't know and we want to make sure that we are prepared if for some reason he does play,'' Toole said. "And they're still doing some of the things they did with him. They still have very good bigs in Jamee Jackson, Ike Azotam, Tevin Baskin. They still have very good, aggressive, capable big men that we're going to need to slow down and stop.''

Still, without Rutty, Quinnipiac isn't the same team.

"It's a huge loss when you kind of build your entire offense and game plan around one guy and then that guy's no longer there,'' Toole said. "Now guys are asked to do things maybe that they weren't asked to do before or that they haven't done all season, and now the way you're getting defended completely changes as well. Where you used to get double teams on the post and you can run your offense through that, now it's one-on-one coverage, and some of those guys who used to be open because of Rutty maybe aren't.''

With Rutty on the bench or with Rutty possibly able to play a bit, the Colonials will still be at TD Bank Sports Center Thursday evening ready to play. And maybe thinking back to last March.

Or not.

"Me, personally, I'm not going to really think about it,'' Jones said. "It's in the past, and we're working on another one, so I'm not going to really think about that game too much. I'm going to think about the game that's at hand and try to win that one.''