Heart-pounding start to playoffs
Bramah scores 14 points in 2nd half as Colonials barely slip past Terriers
With just under three minutes to go in Robert Morris’ NEC quarterfinal game Wednesday against St. Francis Brooklyn, the Colonials were in trouble.
After leading by double digits in the first half, Robert Morris’ lead had evaporated, and as crunch time began, the Colonials led by just one, struggling to get things going offensively.
So, Robert Morris turned to junior forward AJ Bramah. First, he hit a jumper from the elbow to extend his team’s lead to three. Then, he threw down a vicious two-handed slam to make it five.
It seemed good enough for the Colonials to secure a win, but free-throw struggles made things interesting again. Robert Morris guards Josh and Jon Williams both missed the front end of one-and-ones in the last minute, and the Terriers had a shot to win it on the last possession, trailing by just one.
St. Francis Brooklyn guard Larry Moreno put up a contested shot in the paint, which went off the backboard, rolled around the rim and fell off the right side.
The Colonials survived to see another day, scrapping out a 59-58 win and moving on to the NEC tournament semifinals.
“AJ was just telling us out there, his heart’s still pounding,” Robert Morris coach Andy Toole said after the game. “Welcome to conference tournament basketball. That’s what it’s about.”
Added Bramah: “[The last shot] looked pretty good. It hit the backboard, and I thought it was going to spin around and drop, but Jon got the board.”
In the first half, Robert Morris’ healthy lead was due in large part to its defensive efforts. The Colonials forced St. Francis Brooklyn into 15 turnovers in the first 20 minutes, and they turned that into 16 points off turnovers. With that, Robert Morris led by as many as 14.
The trajectory of the half changed, however, when the Terriers switched to a 2-3 zone defense, which they have rarely done under coach Glenn Braica. Some of the easy looks the Colonials had been getting weren’t there anymore, and St. Francis Brooklyn went on a 9-0 run near the end of the first half.
Josh Williams momentarily halted that momentum with a 3-pointer with five seconds left in the half, but the Terriers had an answer for that, too. Guard Chauncey Hawkins hit a buzzer-beating heave from beyond half court, cutting the Colonials’ lead to 32-27 at the break.
Naturally, St. Francis Brooklyn continued with the zone defense in the second half, and Robert Morris continued to struggle. The Colonials got a lot of open looks but couldn’t hit any. They started the second half 0 for 10 from beyond the arc while the Terriers slowly but steadily chipped away and eventually took the lead with 10:41 left in the game, holding it until the 5:29 mark. Luckily for Robert Morris, Bramah showed up big for them, scoring 14 points in the second half to help his team get back on the right side of the scoreline.
The Colonials will now face LIU at 2 p.m. Saturday at UPMC Events Center.
“Obviously the second half offensively didn’t flow as well as we would have liked, but we were able to figure it out, and that’s what conference tournament basketball is,” Toole said. “It can be crazy. It can be wild. But the objective is to live another day, and I was proud of the way the guys continued to focus on the things that were important even as it got a little shaky down the end . ... We’re excited to be able to play on Saturday again.”