Robert Morris Unable to Complete Comeback in Loss to Purdue Fort Wayne

MOON TWP, Pa. — Like most Horizon League games that Robert Morris (11-7, 3-4) has played this season, Sunday’s duel with Purdue Fort Wayne (11-8, 5-3) came down to the final seconds, but it was the Mastodons that slammed the door shut on the 79-74 road victory when Corey Hadnot II blocked Ryan Prather Jr.’s potential game-tying three-pointer with two seconds left.

Despite the game coming down to the final seconds, the Colonials fought back from two separate double-digit deficits in the game, including a 14-point deficit with under eight minutes left in the game, but the “fight” that they showed did not please head coach Andy Toole.

Rather, it infuriated him because according to him, other teams have to prove that they actually showed up to win the game before his team is able to show any fight or effort.

“You got to prove to us that you really want to win, and then we’ll try to really get more invested in engaged,” Toole said after the loss. “Then, once we take the lead, then we relax, because we’ve accomplished so much, then we go down again, and then we’re, ‘Oh, now we have to pick our energy level back up.’ So, it’s a terrible cycle that we’re living in.”

That is an issue that the Colonials have faced all season long. Slow starts on either side of the floor followed by a second-half surge. While the second-half effort is more of what Toole wants out of his team, he stated that he is now at a loss of how to make his team play with that same effort for a sustained 40 minutes.

“We pick and choose when we want to play hard because we don’t respect the game or the opportunity enough to give our best effort on a sustained basis so we pick and choose when we want to play hard,” Toole continued. “
We come out to games hoping that our opponent doesn’t want to win.”

Final pic.twitter.com/8FXYrKoR1J

— RMU Basketball (@RMUMBasketball) January 11, 2026

Robert Morris got the scoring started with a jump hook from Nikolaos Chitikoudis but quickly jumped out to a 10-7 lead behind threes from Maximus Nelson and Mikale Stevenson.

The Colonials managed to tie the game up at 10 a piece before they took a 13-10 lead on back-to-back threes from Cam Wilds, but that would be the last lead that the home team held until midway through the second half as the Mastodons started raining threes in at a high rate.

The Mastodons used runs of 14-5 and 8-3 to build an eventual 37-27 lead and that was because of the Colonials’ inability to run shooters off of the three as they cashed in eight threes in the first 16 minutes of the game.

The Colonials managed to close the first half out on a strong note as they went on an 8-1 run that cut the score down to 38-35 before Nelson sunk his fourth triple of the half right at the buzzer to give the Mastodons a 43-37 lead at the halftime break.

After Robert Morris committed a shot-clock violation to start the second half, Purdue Fort Wayne rushed down the court for a quick two that extended its lead to eight.

That is when the Colonials decided to amp up their effort level as they went on a 9-0 run that gave them their first lead since the score was 13-10, but it was short lived as the Mastodons immediately responded with a 5-0 run to jump back ahead 50-46.

The 5-0 run ballooned into an 18-5 run after the Mastodons switched their offensive mindset from shooting threes to driving to the rim for layups and potential fouls. That shift worked as the lengthy run that put them up 63-51 was fueled by multiple layups and four free throws.

“I’m not doing a good enough job of being able to figure out a way defensively to be able to slow down our opponent,” Toole said. “You can pretty much pick and choose how you want to score against us. In the first half, make threes, in the second half, just get to the rim. 
Do whatever you want. So, it makes it really hard to win games when you can never get consistent stops.”

Again, when the Colonials started to feel the game slip away, their effort level ramped up and so did the defensive stops, which helped re-ignite the offense. Over the next few minutes, the Mastodons’ once 14-point lead disappeared into just a three-point lead at the 2:24 mark.

After DeSean Goode sunk a pair of free throws to make the score 73-70, the Colonials got the ball back with the chance to tie the game up and it looked like they would on a deep three-point attempt by Prather, but it rimmed out and went back down the other end of the court where Hadnot sunk another midrange shot.

When it looked like the Mastodons sealed the game, the Colonials made one last push as Chitikoudis managed to make a tough layup that made the score 77-74 with just 13 seconds left. Chitikoudis was fouled on the play which sent him to the line with the chance to cut it to just a two-point game but after he missed the free throw it looked all but over again.

That was until the Colonials stepped up and forced a turnover on the ensuing inbound pass with six seconds left. That gave the Colonials the chance to potentially tie the game at the buzzer and send it to overtime.

The play that Toole drew up put the ball into Prather’s hands but after a fellow Colonial failed to set a screen on Hadnot, the Mastodons leading scorer came up with the biggest play of the game, a block on Prather’s three-point attempt.

Prather finished as the Colonials leading scorer with 20 points on a 7-of-19 shooting day, but he ended just 3-of-12 from behind the arc. Goode was the Colonials only other double-digit scorer as he tallied 14 points and eight rebounds in the loss.

The Mastodons saw three players finish with at least 15 points, as Hadnot led the way with 17 followed by Nelson and Stevenson each netting 15 a piece. The Mastodons shot 55% from the field and 46% from three in the win over the Colonials.

Robert Morris, now losers of three of its last four games, will hit the road for two Horizon League games starting with IU Indy on Thursday before they return home three-straight games at the UPMC Events Center in late January.