Robert Morris takes lumps in opener at Iowa

The sequel to an unbelievable men’s basketball season at Robert Morris finally got underway Tuesday night for the Colonials with a tough Midwest assignment.

As expected, the new-look Colonials, a year removed from their first Horizon League championship, failed Iowa’s challenging test, falling behind quickly and losing 101-69 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City.

“There were some moments where we saw things that look like they eventually could make sense,” Robert Morris coach Andy Toole said on the Colonials’ postgame broadcast, “but certainly the way the game started tonight was just not the way we need to be to be able to function against any opponent.”

Bennett Stirtz scored 19 points, Tavion Banks added 17 and Iowa forced 23 Robert Morris turnovers and rolled over the outmanned Colonials.

The duo is among six Drake transfers who followed former Bulldogs coach Ben McCollum to Iowa. Two others — Cam Manyawu and Isaia Howard — also scored in double figures for the Hawkeyes and joined Brendan Hausen with 10 points apiece.

Former Robert Morris star Alvaro Folgueiras, another Iowa transfer, finished with 11 points, five rebounds and three assists in 18 minutes after receiving his Horizon League championship ring from RMU coaches prior to the start of the game.

Iowa shot a sizzling 61.7% (29 for 47). The Hawkeyes led by 20 points less than eight minutes into the game.

“Obviously, we got hit with a haymaker to start the game and weren’t able to recover,” Toole said. “The pace of the game, the environment of the game, the quickness of the decisions that needed to be made within the game, we weren’t ready for that.”

The Colonials remain in Iowa, where they’ll head to Des Moines on Thursday to face Drake (1-0), which defeated Northern Arizona, 77-71, on Monday for new coach Eric Henderson’s first victory with the Bulldogs after replacing McCollum.

Henderson spent the past six seasons at South Dakota State, where his teams won four Summit League championships.

The 6-foot-10 Folgueiras, who a year ago led Robert Morris in rebounding and was second in scoring, shot 4 for 5 for Iowa (1-0) and canned his first two attempts of the game — both from behind the 3-point arc, where he converted 3 of 4.

Robert Morris (0-1), whose entire starting lineup from a 26-9 NCAA Tournament team entered the transfer portal, was led by Nikolaos Chitikoudis’ 14 points on 7-of-11 shooting.

Chitikoudis, a 6-9 transfer from North Carolina A&T, grabbed nine rebounds to lead RMU, whose 25 boards nearly equaled Iowa’s total of 26. But it didn’t figure in the outcome. The Colonials wound up shooting 47.9% (23 for 48) and made 11 of 24 (45.8) from behind the arc.

Ryan Prather Jr., the only returning player for RMU, added 12 points and DeSean Goode, who transferred from Horizon League member IU Indianapolis, finished with 11.

Chitikoudis and Goode are among nine new transfers for the Colonials, who were coming off their first Horizon championship since joining the conference in 2020.

“What it comes to at this time of the year is trust,” Toole said. “When you have the number of new guys that we have, it’s hard to have that trust in the coaches, in the system, in each other. We’ve fought, argued, battled, challenged, patted on the back, massaged, shown film, all in hopes of trying not to be overwhelmed in this kind of environment.

“… (But) we turned the first possession over not even passing the ball, just dribbling it out of bounds. It stinks that you have to go through that kind of thing. It’s embarrassing as a player and a coach, but if you don’t train yourself appropriately, this is the result.”

Stirtz, the Missouri Valley Conference Player of he Year and an AP All-America honorable mention last season at Drake, shot 6-for-9 and led Iowa with six assists.

A year ago, he averaged 19.2 points in leading Drake to a 31-4 record and a first-round NCAA Tournament victory in McCollum’s only season as the Bulldogs’ coach.

Folgueiras’ 3-pointer with 11 minutes, 52 seconds remaining in the first half put Iowa ahead 25-7, and the Hawkeyes settled for a 49-26 halftime lead after Robert Morris gained some composure.

The Colonials committed 13 first-half turnovers.

Iowa outscored RMU in the second half, 52-43, leaving the only question before the final whistle to be whether the Hawkeyes would reach 100 points.

And they did.