Inexperience overtaking RMU
was broken after a car accident over the summer but was expected to return in December. But a setback with his rehabilitation puts his status in limbo for the rest of the season.
Junior-college transfer Malik Petteway was an early impact player, starting in four of the first 12 games and providing 6.2 points and 6.2 rebounds a contest. But he’s dealing with a health issue and hasn’t appeared in a game in 2018. His availability moving forward is unclear.
Robert Morris’ other juniorcollege transfer, Taevon Ashmeade, has played four minutes since logging 16 in the season opener at Ohio State. As a result, the Colonials have been forced to stick with a nineman rotation — including five freshmen and one redshirt freshman — for much of conference play.
Although it’s a talented freshman class — Koby Thomas is an NEC rookie of the year candidate, and Jon Williams, Leondre Washington, Charles Bain and Chris Coalmon have had standout games — consistency has been an issue.
“They’ve gotta be able to be the best versions of themselves,” Toole said of his young players. “We talked to some guys last week about — you made a jump from high school to college and now you have to raise your game. Hoping that you’re back in high school isn’t going to help solve the situation that we have here. Those guys have gotta figure it out, they’ve got to push through. They gotta improve and be more locked in so we can perform better.”
Graduate transfer forward Ronnie Gombe is the lone newcomer to the rotation with a season of Division I experience under his belt and is the lone forward who isn’t a freshman. It has put extra pressure on Thomas, Bain and Coalmon to limit mistakes.
After winning six of their first seven conference games, the Colonials now are just a game over .500 overall and will play four of their final six games on the road.
“It’s what the schedule says we have to do, so we have to rise up and play the right way,” Toole said.