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Robert Morris Takeaways: Kam Woods Continues to Shine in the Brightest Moments

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2 months ago

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Robert Morris guard Kam Woods shoots a floating jump shot in the semifinal matchup against Oakland -- RMU Athletics

INDIANAPOLIS — The sixth-seeded Oakland Golden Grizzlies gave the league’s top-seed, Robert Morris, everything that it could handle in Monday’s semifinal matchup. The Colonials erased a 13-point second-half deficit before tying the game in the final seconds and winning it in overtime by the score of 79-76.

“First and foremost, it was an incredibly well-played and hard-fought game, exactly what you would expect in a semifinal of a conference tournament,” Robert Morris head coach Andy Toole said after the game. “Obviously, Coach Kampe and his team have been here, they know what it takes. … But, I give our guys a lot of credit for continuing to battle back.”

While star point guard Kam Woods struggled out of the gate against the Golden Grizzlies, he showed up in the game’s brightest moment just as he did all season. Woods made the game-tying bucket with 17 seconds left on a tough and-one where he wrapped around a defender as he was fouled and somehow got the ball up and over the top before seeing it fall into the basket.

According to him, that was not even the hardest part of the play as he stated he was more concerned with the free throw. He ended up making the free throw to send the game to overtime. Then, in overtime, Woods made one of Robert Morris’ two field goals on an equally as clutch floater which gave the team the cushion that it needed to close the game out.

“Even though I was down, my teammates kept telling me to keep shooting the ball,” Woods said after the game. “They didn’t get mad because I was missing and that we were down. Coach told me to keep shooting great looks. So, just having that in my ear gave me more confidence to just keep balling out no matter how I was playing.”

“I have been missing free throws lately so [the shot] wasn’t the hardest part, it was probably the free throw,” Woods continued about the game-tying shot. “Just being at the line, tying the game up for my team.”

Not only with Woods, but the whole entire Colonials team showed what they did all season which was that they are a second-half team. The Colonials trailed at the intermission by the score of 38-34 and then trailed by the score of 53-40 within the first five minutes of the second half before rallying.

Monday’s semifinal was the eighth one-possession game of the season for the Colonials as they went 6-2 in such games due to their ability to control their emotions and their ability to play the right brand of basketball in the second half of games.

“It’s these guys,” Toole said about the team’s ability to fight back in second half of games. “It started all the way back when we got together this summer. I’ve said it about 20 times in the last two weeks, this is probably as competitive of a group as I’ve coached. We knew right off the bat when out summer workout started. Winning and losing mattered and that bled into the fall and that bled into our gameplay. … So, they take that mindset onto the court. They believe they are going to continue to fight. They believe that they can continue to make plays and that’s the attitude and mindset that they have adapted and it started from day one.”

The Colonials are stacked in regard to the rest of the Horizon League as they have two of the best forwards in the conference. Alvaro Folgueiras won the league’s Player of the Year award while Amarion Dickerson won the league’s Defensive Player of the Year award. Neither of them were the “big-man” to step up in the semifinal win which was mainly due to the foul issues that they dealt with.

Dickerson picked up two fouls within the first three minutes of the game which limited his production while Folgueiras fouled out late in the second half and was not available for the overtime period. The big-man to step up in their place was Ismael Plet.

Plet played 23 minutes and scored 10 points on a 5-of-6 shooting night and hauled in five rebounds as he played valuable minutes in-place of the two All-League players. The Oral Roberts transfer has now helped them win both of their tournament games as Dickerson was in foul trouble in the quarterfinals, too.

“Really productive minutes,” Toole said of Plet’s performance. “Obviously, he has the size and strength to matchup with Mukeba or [Naivalurua] and I think those things kind of help him in these kind of games but I thought he was excellent. … I thought he had an excellent game. Obviously, we’re not sitting here winning this game without the contributions of his tonight.”

The Colonials are right back at it in less than 24 hours for their biggest game of the season, the Horizon League Championship. The drawback is that they are going to have to recover from a very physical, hard-fought overtime game. While they have not played on back-to-back nights since the Urban-Bennett Invitational, Toole is not worried about how the team will show up to the finals but rather thankful they have made it this far.

“Just recover, recover, recover,” Toole said about what the next 24 hours or so will look like for his team. “Try to hydrate, try to recover as quickly as you can and do everything in your power to get your body back to the best level it can be at. Then, you got to be tough enough to fight through whatever fatigue or feelings you have tomorrow but you had to lay it on the line tonight or you don’t even get the opportunity tomorrow so we’re just thankful that we got an opportunity tomorrow night.”

After beating the Golden Grizzlies in overtime of the league’s semifinals, Robert Morris continues its historic season by playing in its first ever Horizon League Championship on Thursday night. If the Colonials win the championship, it will give them the league’s auto-bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Following the results of Monday’s second semifinal game between Cleveland State and Youngstown State, the Colonials will go for win No. 26 and the Horizon League title against the Penguins. Robert Morris and Youngstown State split the season series as each won on the opposing team’s court.

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