ALTOONA, Pa. -- Andrew Toole led Robert Morris to an NCAA Tournament bid during the Colonials' final season as a member of the Northeast Conference in 2019-20, but the tourney was canceled that year because of COVID.
That was the second NCAA bid the Colonials had earned under Toole, plus a pair of NIT bids, since he took over as head coach in 2010. Along with those NCAA and NIT berths, Toole had compiled a record of 188-154 at Robert Morris by the end of the 2020 season.
The Colonials were the class of the Northeast Conference for many years, always a contender to win the league, and Toole was one of the best coaches in the NEC.
But when Robert Morris decided to leave the NEC and join the Horizon League two years ago, most in college basketball felt there would be a big learning curve for the program with the jump up in competition. And that's been the case so far for the Colonials.
Robert Morris went 4-15 overall and 3-12 in the Horizon during its first season in 2020-21. Last year saw the Colonials go 8-24 overall and 5-16 in the league.
What will be in store for Year 3?
Well, the Colonials have a good bit of experience with four starters returning, but they also have 11 new players. The Horizon League preseason poll was released Wednesday afternoon, and Robert Morris was picked to finish eighth. Here's the breakdown from the poll:
T1. Purdue Fort Wayne
T1. Northern Kentucky
3. Wright State
4. Oakland
5. Youngstown State
6. Detroit Mercy
7. Cleveland State
8. Robert Morris
9. Milwaukee
10. Green Bay
11. IUPUI
Robert Morris will hold its basketball tipoff event, MADNESS, Thursday night at 7 at UPMC Events Center on campus. Admission is free, and there will be contests and other activities for fans, plus chances to win prizes.
I caught up with Toole for a chat on what he likes about this year's team, what the squad will have to work on and his thoughts on what makes playing in the Horizon League different from the NEC.
DKPS: "What do you like most about your team and your roster that you've got coming back?"
TOOLE: "I think the thing we like most about these guys, this roster so far this year, has just been their ability to get coached. They've been really, really open to being coached and making adjustments to be able to improve and to be able to execute our offensive and defensive system."
DKPS: "You have four starters back, so you have a lot of experience. What does the experience factor do for you?"
TOOLE: "A couple of those guys were certainly experienced. Matt Mayers obviously was his first year Division I last year. So you hope that obviously some of the ups and downs that we had during the course of last year gives them a little bit of scar tissue, motivates them day in and day out to be able to work harder and be more committed to our formula so that we can try to have a better season."
DKPS: "That's interesting, the scar tissue part. What does scar tissue mean to you, going through some of that adversity?"
TOOLE: "I think it just holds you a little more accountable. When you lose close games, when you try and cut a corner maybe your first time around, thinking that this isn't going to come back to haunt you, and then all of a sudden you get in a game situation and it does. That kind of creates, to me, some of that scar tissue that hopefully in the future makes you a little more attentive to detail, makes you a little more urgent in your execution and your understanding of what needs to be done. Maybe focuses you a little more during the course of the ups and downs of practices, or in timeouts, or in all those small areas that really make the difference between winning and losing."
DKPS: "When you have 11 new players, what is that process like getting everybody on the same page in preseason and then for the non-conference, as well?"
TOOLE: "It goes back to last year when we were trying to construct a roster, really talking about trying to find guys that value the game the way that we value it as a coaching staff and as a program, guys that want to get coached, guys that are willing to work. Those are some of the things that we were looking for. And then when guys got here, we challenged them to be the people they were when we recruited them, and that was really something that we echoed during the course of the summertime, even through the fall, even as you've gotten in here now to having one closed scrimmage, a couple of intrasquad scrimmages. Can you continue to be that same person no matter what, no matter if we play great or we play poorly? If you play a lot or if you don't play much at all? If you make every shot or you miss every shot? Are you going to be the same person when you come back to the gym the next day, to continue to try and improve and get better so that our team gets better?"
DKPS: "This is Year 3 in the Horizon League. What have you learned with that league about what it takes night in and night out against that level of competition?"
TOOLE: "We've learned we got to be way more consistent. I think that was something that any winning team in any league is consistent. And I think last year there was just too many times where we were inconsistent. We know the Horizon League is a very good league with good coaches, good players. And we've got to consistently be able to execute our plan over 40 minutes. We only played in stretches last year, and sometimes those stretches were predicated on how guys felt, and that was predicated on whether the ball went in the basket. Sometimes it was predicated on the resistance we got from our opponent. Like, if our opponent all of a sudden gave us that little bit extra resistance, we didn't want to fight as hard as you need to fight in order to continue to execute your plan. And usually the team that imposes their will on the other team is the one that wins, and far too often, we didn't impose our will."
DKPS: "For you guys as coaches, you know more about what to expect in the league. You've been in the gyms, you've seen the physicality. What have you guys learned as coaches about how to game plan in the Horizon?"
TOOLE: "I think we've learned that we've got to start being able to get some different things in earlier in the year, even in the course of our practices. We see a number of different defenses, we see a number of different styles of play, and so trying to familiarize ourselves or our players I guess with some of those things that they might see during the course of the season earlier. There were times probably seasons back where, one team would guard ball screens in a certain way, and the week leading up to that game, you kind of start to go over what your counters are going to be or what your solutions will be for that coverage. And now we kind of try and mix a lot of that stuff in even now, different coverages, different days, getting guys to be able to read and understand, seeing different screen actions, seeing different offensive actions just to try and prepare us as much as we can because we see a number of different styles. We see teams that can change defenses and be effective in multiple defenses. So those are some of the things that we've had to adjust to and try and prepare our teams for."
DKPS: "What's the biggest difference that you've learned between the NEC and the Horizon?"
TOOLE: "One is size. Obviously, Saint Francis, Pa., was a team that had some size ... for a number of seasons. But across the board, the Northeast Conference was more of an undersized league, not only frontcourt size, but perimeter size, wing size -- true 6-foot-5 wings with length. Mount St. Mary's obviously had a huge team these last couple of years and were able to kind of do some things with their size advantage. But across the board, that wasn't necessarily what the league was, so that's certainly something that's a little bit different. I would also say there's probably some more ability to have -- I don't know how to say this without, I don't want to be negative toward the NEC -- but just some more versatile players maybe. Guys that can play multiple positions, guys that can create some difficulty for you by the way they can be used offensively. And there just are more of those guys than there were in the NEC. Not that the NEC didn't have guys like that, but it seems like there's more of them in the Horizon League than there was in the Northeast Conference."
DKPS: "You've got your MADNESS event going on Thursday. How cool of an event is that, and what do you like most about it?"
TOOLE: "It's a fun night for our guys, first and foremost. They have a lot of fun with it. Obviously you get to interact with the students, you get to kind of announce the season's coming very soon and try and just create a buzz and and energy around the the facility. We've opened it up to the community this year and moved it up earlier in the evening. It used to be later at night, so the students were kind of the only ones that attended. Now we've kind of moved it up hoping to get a lot more of the community to be able to come out, get a chance to get a feel for our guys, some of their personalities, some of the excitement surrounding our team, so that they'll want to come out to games."
For a detailed look at Robert Morris' roster, check here for the school's release breaking everything down.
