ALTOONA, Pa. -- Robert Morris came up short in overtime against UIC Saturday afternoon falling, 96-88, at the UPMC Events Center.
With 18.6 seconds left in the second half, the Flames tied the game at 83 on a Jace Carter steal and dunk. From there, the Colonials had a chance to tie it in regulation, but Michael Green III missed his shot and the putback by Enoch Cheeks wasn't on the mark forcing the game to overtime.
"When bad things happen to us we struggle to bounce back and get to the next play," Andy Toole said. "We carried that last play all the way through overtime. It's really unfortunate. I thought Mike got a good look right at the end of regulation. It fell a little bit short. They took over in overtime because we weren't able to rally and do the things necessary to win."
It's the same old story for Robert Morris, spoiling a solid offensive effort by not playing a two-way game and failing miserably on the defensive side.
Senior Kahliel Spear scored a team-high 24 points and grabbed nine rebounds while Brandon Stone added 16 points and nine rebounds himself. Green and Cheeks both scored in double figures as well with 14 and 11 points respectively.
"At this stage in the game when the season isn't going great, can you stay together and value each and every day that you get to put the jersey on?" Toole said. "A lot of times the grass is greenest where it gets watered, and it's the brownest where the neighbor dog comes over and does what it does. You have that dynamic starting to build where, are you taking care of your lawn? Are you taking care of the opportunity you have right now? Down the stretch we had some critical breakdowns in some of our zone slides, which is day one stuff. Those kinds of plays have been plaguing us all year long, because I'm not sure everyone is watering their lawn."
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
THE SCHEDULE
The Colonials will be on the road for their final two games of the season first against Northern Kentucky at 7 p.m. Thursday before finishing at Wright State Saturday.
THE CONTENT
Visit our Robert Morris team page for everything.