Robert Morris Wins Fifth-Straight Game, Sweeps Oakland With Last Second Finish

MOON TWP, Pa. — Kam Woods’ free throws with 1.7 seconds left in the game sealed the fifth-straight win for Robert Morris (15-7, 7-4 HL) as they completed the season sweep of the Oakland Golden Grizzlies (9-13, 6-5 HL) with a 73-71 win at the UPMC Events Center.

Woods, who scored a season-high 29 points against the Golden Grizzlies earlier this month, was held scoreless in the first half of Saturday’s showdown. Woods started the game 0-of-6 from the field and finished just 1-of-8 for the game but scored the deciding points after he was fouled on his potential game-winning three-point shot at the buzzer.

“[Kam] got banged up at one point in time during the beginning of the game and was not himself in terms of explosiveness or ability to get to the rim,” Robert Morris head coach Andy Toole said about Woods’ ability to be clutch. “They were doubling him a bunch of times so down the stretch of the game obviously we wanted him to be one of the decision makers for us. … Again, it’s how can you contribute? What can you do? It might not be your night, it might not be the best but can you come in and make the right play.”

The win marked the longest in-conference winning streak for the Colonials since they joined the Horizon League back in 2020. It also marked the fourth game out of their last five to be decided by one possession.

“I think we talked about this all of the way back at the beginning of the season that I felt like this group has a lot of competitiveness to them and there is a lot of pride. We have some really prideful guys in there,” Toole said about the way that his team has come together over the last few games. “I think at the beginning of the year, at times, it was an individual pride, like ‘how did I play?’ but now it is becoming a collective pride of like ‘what else can you do for the team.'”

The game started as well as it could for the Colonials as they jumped out to a quick 9-0 run that was capped off by a posterizing dunk from Amarion Dickerson.

The quick start forced the Golden Grizzlies to switch to a zone defense which helped slow the Colonials offense. This allowed the Golden Grizzles to respond with a 6-0 run that ultimately turned into an overall run of 16-5.

After starting the game 0-of-7 from the field and 0-of-5 from behind the arc, the Golden Grizzlies offense woke up as they then went six of their next eight from three-point range. Nassim Mashhour paced the Golden Grizzlies early on as he connected on three first-half threes and scored 11 of his 14 points in the opening half.

The huge run that Mashhour led put the Golden Grizzlies out to a 32-26 lead by the time that the final media stoppage of the half rolled around.

Following the media stoppage, Robert Morris made it a four-point game following Ryan Prather Jr.’s third triple of the first half but the Golden Grizzlies pushed the score to 35-29 as the team’s went into the locker rooms for halftime following Isaiah Jones’ buzzer-beating fadeaway.

The problem for both team’s early in the second half was foul trouble.

The Golden Grizzlies leading scorer for the season, Allen David Mukeba, was limited as he picked up his fourth foul less than a minute into the second half. The team’s leading scorer from the first half, Mashhour, also ran into foul trouble early in the second half after he picked up three personals within a few possessions of each other.

Mukeba ended up finishing the game without scoring a point and Mashhour ended up fouling out midway through the period after he picked up his fifth personal on a flagrant foul. All of that together forced Tuburu Naivalurua to put the weight on his back which he did fairly well. Naivalurua scored 16 of his game-high 23 points in the second half.

Dickerson on the other hand, was leading the Colonials with 12 points when he picked up his third foul less than four minutes into the half. This limited his action for a couple of minutes in the second half.

In the early portion of the second half, Dickerson and Naivalurua traded points before a corner three from Josh Omojafo at the 14:28 mark gave the Colonials their first lead since the score was 14-13. Omojafo’s triple made the score 44-42 in favor of the Colonials.

“I thought that in the first half, Oakland made better adjustments than we did,” Toole said about what changed after halftime. “I thought that they were able to do some things to take away things that we did in the first game and I thought in the second half, we adjusted a little bit better with our attack. Obviously, we were really efficient in that second half from a shooting perspective but a lot of those were really good, open shots. So, credit on our guys with taking some of those adjustments.”

That lead was short lived though as DQ Cole hit a three on the other end and Naivalurua followed it up with a strong layup. The Golden Grizzlies re-claimed a five-point lead a few seconds later when Cooper Craggs nailed another three.

The three from Craggs made the score 50-45 but then Colonials responded with their biggest run of the second half which was a 7-0 run that was started on Prather’s fourth three of the game. The teams would go on to trade the lead a handful of times before a put-back slam from Ismael Plet put the Colonials up 63-57 and gave them the momentum in the game.

The Colonials could not cash in on that momentum though as the Golden Grizzlies tied the game at 63 points a piece minutes later. The Colonials went on a scoring drought of over two minutes which allowed the 6-0 run from the Golden Grizzlies.

Robert Morris finally ended its drought when D.J. Smith made a three that put Robert Morris back ahead with three minutes to go. Naivalurua answered on the other end of the court with a deep midrange jumper which cut the deficit to just one.

Then both teams went scoreless until Dickerson snapped the second two-minute scoring drought of the last five minutes with a rim-rocking dunk with 1:09 left.

The Golden Grizzlies managed to tied the game on a clutch corner three from Malcolm Christies with 47 seconds to go but Alvaro Folgueiras responded with a three of his own.

Following Folgueiras’ big-time shot, the Golden Grizzlies had just 22 seconds to tie the game back up which they managed to do on another huge three from Christie with just seven seconds remaining.

That is when Woods came down the court and found just enough space to get up a shot before the buzzer sounded. While he missed the shot, the Golden Grizzlies were called for a shooting foul which allowed Woods to shoot three free throws with just 1.7 seconds on the clock. Woods made two of the three and iced the game for the Colonials.

Dickerson’s 17 points led the way for the Colonials but they also received solid contributions from Prather Jr., Folgueiras and Smith. Prather finished as the team’s second leading scorer with 14 points on 4-of-6 three-point shooting. Folgueiras notched another double-double as he ended with 13 points, 14 rebounds and seven assists. Smith scored 10 points in the win.

Naivalurua ended the game as the leading scorer as he totaled 23 points. Mashhour added 14 points before fouling out. No other Golden Grizzlies player scored more than 8 points.

Robert Morris remains at home following their win over Oakland and will play host to IUPUI on Thursday evening. The Colonials will look to win their sixth-straight Horizon League game when the Jaguars come to town.