The piercing sound of his voice echoes above everything else. The fire in Andy Toole has been rekindled. The passion is there.

Same coach. Different players.

Nearly four months to the day after the Robert Morris men’s basketball team gave No. 2 seed Alabama a scare in the NCAA Tournament, the Horizon League’s reigning coach of the year was auditioning with another team inside UPMC Events Center.

You see, Toole lost his old team, a 26-9 club that claimed the school’s first Horizon League championship. Most of its members hit the NCAA transfer portal, some even on a gamble.

So, while he’s been fixed on getting to know a brand-new group, he knows his players are getting to know him, as well.

It is another team, he hopes, that is built to continue the Colonials’ surprising rampage of last season in spite of a season-ending, 90-81 loss in the NCAA first round.

“Getting into the tournament did help us,” said Toole, entering his 16th year armed with a new contract extension through the 2028-29 season at RMU’s suburban Moon campus.

“Guys saw the way we utilized some of those guys, that we had some success, that we were in the NCAA Tournament. It certainly attracted some of these guys to this program.”

Among them Albert Vargas, a 5-foot-10 senior, who is bidding to become the team’s No. 1 point guard as a Division II transfer from Southern Connecticut State.

Vargas, a product of New York’s Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School in the city’s Bronx borough, first played two junior college seasons at nearby Monroe University. He then earned all-Northeast-10 first-team honors at Southern Connecticut State, where in his only season he averaged 17.5 points and 5.7 assists.

“I’ve been getting ready for this moment,” Vargas said. “I’ve been here for a little while, but I’m still walking around this arena, this campus, and I say, ‘This is the real deal.’

“I really imagine myself in the game.”

He figures to be heir apparent at point guard to leading scorer Kam Woods, the little-used transfer from N.C. State’s 2024 Final Four team, who led Robert Morris in scoring last season.

Woods, who averaged 14.9 points, 5.2 assists and 4.7 rebounds and was second in steals (1.7 spg) in the Horizon, was one of nine RMU players to hit the NCAA transfer portal at the conclusion of last season.

While he’s yet to fit in with another school, six of his former teammates have, including two with Power 4 conference teams.

Horizon League player of the year Alvaro Folgueiras went to Iowa, defensive player of the year Amarion Dickerson transferred to USC, Josh Omojafo is at South Florida, D.J. Smith moved on to Mercer, Justice Williams opted for Western Michigan and Maurio Hanson Jr. will play at Maryland-Eastern Shore.

The 6-9 Folguerias enhanced his NBA stock last season, averaging 15.3 points and 8.6 rebounds and racking up 14 double-doubles, including a season-ending 15 and 10 against Alabama.

The 6-7 Dickerson, who averaged 14.6 points and 6.3 rebounds, is a fierce shot blocker who averaged 2.3 rejections a game, second to Youngstown State’s Gabe Dynes in the Horizon.

Like Vargas, Omojafo, who made several highlight film dunks throughout the season, came to RMU as a Division II transfer from Gannon.

He’s already on to the next chapter in the American Athletic Conference at South Florida.

“They earned the opportunity that they got,” Toole said. “They worked their butts off. They won a lot of games. They had a lot of success. They became more marketable because of the way they performed and the way they were able to contribute to a productive and winning team.

“A lot of coaches value that a lot.”

Dilen Miller and Antallah Sandlin’El are two other former RMU players yet to make a decision on a new school.

Toole garnered a total of nine transfers in rebuilding RMU’s program for this season — again — after bringing in six before last season’s magical run, among them Ryan Prather Jr. from Akron, who is the only one to remain.

Joining Vargas by way of the portal are 6-7 Kaleb Brown (Cal State Fullerton), 6-9 Nikolaos Chitikoudis (North Carolina A&T), 6-8 DeSean Goode (IU Indy), 6-11 Josh Hill (Arkansas State), 7-1 Ubong Okon (Alabama State), 6-3 Ta’Zir Smith (Louisiana-Monroe), 6-6 Cam Wilds (Division II Clarion) and 6-5 junior college transfer Jeremiah Littlejohn (Western Oklahoma State).

“You still have to make sure they’re the right fit, that they are who you think they are,” Toole said. “Certainly, it’s an easier conversation-starter when you say, ‘We were in the NCAA Tournament, we won the Horizon League.’ People are familiar with what a good league the Horizon League is and that it’s hard to win in it. It definitely helped us in our conversations with these guys.”

Early-season summer workouts have been going on for a while now, giving Toole an early look at his latest haul. He can only hope this bunch will take a cue from the last group, a record-setting collection.

“You’re certainly trying find guys that have some of that same competitive spirit that we lost in the transfer portal,” Toole said. “It’s way too soon to say that. We maybe have some more size, some more depth in size. We had some pretty unique and special players on last year’s team. We haven’t necessarily seen anybody separate themselves in that way yet.”

Much like last season, Toole knows the process is just beginning.

“If you’d have watched us play our first game against West Virginia (87-59 loss), and then watched who we became, you’d have thought we’d have had a complete roster overhaul,” he said. “We’re continuing to fight the fight. We’re trying to build it from the foundation up — just like we always do — step-by-step. We’re trying to promote the right things, emphasize the things that are going to contribute to winning, and we hope that these guys are embracing that. We’ve seen that at times.”

Vargas, for one, already was feeling the excitement build.

“Deciding to come here was not a difficult decision once coach Toole got on the phone and gave me a straight, good vibe,” said Vargas, who was contacted by “15 or 20 schools,” including UNC Greensboro and Appalachian State, while his name was in the portal.

“He showed me a lot of confidence,” Vargas said, “and it makes you want to go to a place like this. That’s the first thing that opened my eyes. He gave me my flowers, as I would say. He really saw my potential and he believed in me, so I believe in him now, now that I’m here with him. It’s great to have a coach like coach Toole. Our standards are really high, so we’ve got to sustain that.”

Vargas said he knew virtually nothing about Robert Morris before he arrived. Now, he’s been eager to spread the word after just a short time being there.

“People are going to look at us like, ‘Can they do it again?’ So, of course, we’re going to try to do it again,” he said. “We’re going to try to go back to the tournament and win more than one game. We’re trying to make it far. We think we’ve got the pieces, we think we’ve got the players, we think we’ve got the coaches. But you’ve got to put the work in, and we’re going to trust our team and we’re going to trust our coaches.

“We’re going to be a family and do it together.”

Just the sort of thing Toole was hoping to hear.

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