Home-Bound Senior Leads Big Win For Robert Morris
CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – Mike Rice isn’t planning to downplay Monday night’s win, at least not right away. If anything, he and senior Tony Lee wanted to play it up.
“It’s enormous. It’s Boston College. These guys are a perennial Top 25 team,” Rice said after his team’s 57-51 win over the Eagles.
We won’t rain on his parade and tell him that this isn’t the Boston College of the past few years. It is, after all, the school’s first-ever win over an ACC team.
Lee, a native of the area who won state titles at Charlestown High School, spoke the loudest about this win. He wanted this so badly that he gave the pregame talk.
“This win right here means a lot to me, to the team, to the conference, also to Robert Morris,” said the senior guard. “We didn’t come here to see my family and bring me back home, we came here for business, we came here to win a game.”
The Colonials never trailed after they ran off nine in a row to take a 31-24 lead late in the first half. Although the Eagles tied the game twice in the second half, they didn’t have any life in them all night long and it wasn’t a surprise that they couldn’t get over the hump. Lee had no small part in it, scoring 12 points and grabbing eight rebounds, the type of numbers he put up often at Charlestown when he won a lot of games.
The Colonials rode hot shooting from long range to their first half lead, making 5 of 7 from behind the arc, then turned up the defense in the second half as they struggled offensively. They forced 20 turnovers and held the Eagles to 2-13 shooting from long range.
While many coaches talk about the importance of defense, Rice does it and has a particular philosophy on it. A prime reason he has been trying to develop depth all season long is for defensive purposes, and thus far they appear to be well on their way. Nine players average double-digit minutes per game and only Lee and junior guard Jeremy Chappell average over 30. It looks to be paying off, as the Colonials are 11-5 and force over 19 turnovers per game, and they’re third in the NEC in field goal percentage defense.
“You can’t play good defense and play 37 minutes a game,” Rice said. “Tony Lee and A.J. (Jackson) and Jeremy (Chappell), they need help. They need guys to relieve them, and they’re competing. It’s part of the formula – we want to play nine or ten deep, and have everyone be involved in the game.”
All the while, Rice, Lee and the rest of the Colonials are keeping their eyes on what matters most: Northeast Conference play. Rice knows that the NEC isn’t going to produce an at-large team in the NCAA Tournament. Ultimately, they could have lost on Monday and it wouldn’t matter in the bottom line, a point he reiterated.
The path to a conference championship involves defense, according to Rice, who noted the importance of it in the conference champions over the years. That’s why he isn’t paying lip service to the importance of defense and doesn’t want his team to, either.
“It’s always the first or second-place field goal percentage defense team that wins their league, and we haven’t finished higher than eighth in like the last 15 years,” said Rice. “You’ve got to get them to buy in. It’s to their credit that they’re buying in and doing the little things that we need to be successful.”
They’ve been successful so far, and now the task is to turn Monday’s win into a springboard for the rest of the season. The Colonials can enjoy the win for a time, but there are more games ahead, so how much of a boost the win gives them will be in their hands. Rice admits that this poses a challenge for him as a new head coach.
“Having not been through a win like this, I’m going to think hard and long about how we get them back,” he reflected, noting that they play at Fairleigh Dickinson on Thursday to close a three-game road trip.
He has a senior leader to help with that. Lee says that even if they play poorly the rest of the season, the win is still valuable. But there is plenty of business left to take care of.
“I’m going to make sure that my team soaks this win up tonight and a little bit of tomorrow, but when Wednesday comes, we’ve got to focus on FDU and we’ve got to focus on business,” said the senior guard.
The Colonials’ 11-5 record suggests that they have a chance to win the NEC. They also lead the conference in scoring and field goal percentage, and add in an improving defense and success on the road in the form of six wins away from home, and you have a team that should contend for the conference title.
Monday’s win won’t magically get them to the NCAA Tournament, and they know that much. But they’re not going to downplay it, either. It was a big win, and they were happy to get it.
