The path is very similar, even if the team is not.
The Robert Morris men’s basketball team did this a year ago. The Colonials got scalding hot starting the first week of February and didn’t cool off until they won the Horizon League title.
A postseason run started with a first-round win in front of a raucous crowd at the UPMC Events Center.
The only difference is the roster. In fact, it’s almost entirely different.
“Same coach. He did it before. Why can’t he do it again?”
It was a good point made by conference Player of the Year DeSean Goode on Wednesday night. Robert Morris coach Andy Toole returned for a 16th year as the head coach, even if most of the stars from his 2025 NCAA Tournament team didn’t.
And his foundational teaching points were once again good enough to mold a team that coalesced and ascended at the right time heading into postseason play.
“Last year, some guys became a part of this who really wanted to rewrite their own basketball stories. They came together as a group,” Toole said. “Then we have this group come in. Now, the only thing that happened to them is that expectations grew. Over the year, they’ve gotten better, and they’ve grown, and they’ve come together.”
Much of that foundation of late has been built on defense. An opposing team hasn’t reached 70 points against the Colonials since Jan. 31. That includes the Youngstown State Penguins, who fell 68-53 in Moon on Wednesday night in a Horizon League first-round contest.
“Our defense has improved. The detail defensively has been better,” Toole said. “We’ve gotten contributions from guys off the bench that have helped guys hold the line as different guys are getting rest. I think that was really the biggest change in the month of February.”
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The stats underscore Toole’s point. His team’s defensive field goal percentage is 43.6%, best in the Horizon League. Their 72.2 points allowed per game are also the lowest in the conference, and their 24.7 defensive rebounds are the second most in the league.
Similarly, last year’s Colonials were second best in the conference when it came to points per game allowed (71), and they held opponents to under 70 in seven of their last nine regular-season games.
Junior Ryan Prather is the only contributor on the roster who returns from last year’s Horizon League championship team. He leads this year’s team in scoring at 15.8 points per game and had 23 against the Penguins.
Like Toole, he also saw the team come together for those reasons midway through the season.
“(We) definitely picked it up toward the second half of the season. We were working hard, had some ups and downs in the middle. But we picked it up tremendously,” Prather said. “We all stood with it. The coaches didn’t give up on us. I always have faith and belief in the coaches and the team. “
But in what is normally a one-bid league, Prather knows the postseason tournament is what will define this year’s team as it did in 2025. And for all the similarities between the two Colonials squads, you never know how a team is going to perform in a lose-and-go-home scenario until you start to play in it.
“This game (against YSU) right here (and) February gave us a good amount of momentum to believe that we can compete for a championship, which was helping us with our energy on the court,” Prather said.
RMU will take on Detroit Mercy in Monday’s second Horizon League semifinal at 9:30 p.m. in Indianapolis. For the script to continue mirroring last year’s, they’ll need to win that game and one more in Tuesday night’s final.
Those chapters went pretty well for the Colonials a year ago. And, as Goode said, Toole is still in the director’s chair. No reason for a rewrite with this new cast.
