Just over a year ago, Robert Morris hosted a Horizon League tournament game at UPMC Events Center in Moon for the first time since making the jump from the Northeast Conference ahead of the 2020-21 season.

The Colonials put together a four-game winning streak toward the end of the regular season and advanced to the conference tournament quarterfinals, where they lost an overtime heartbreaker to Cleveland State.

No postseason basketball followed for the Colonials, but, without question, their improvement on the hardwood was evident.

After two frustrating seasons in the Horizon League, with results falling well short of the dominance coach Andy Toole’s teams routinely displayed in the NEC, it looked as if the Colonials had turned a corner in their new league.

Fast-forwarding to now, any momentum the Colonials (10-21, 6-14) appeared to have built last year has dissipated.

Robert Morris rides a season-worst six-game losing streak into the Horizon League tournament, with the No. 9-seeded Colonials set to face No. 8 Purdue Fort Wayne on Tuesday in Fort Wayne, Ind.

The Colonials and Mastodons met Saturday in Fort Wayne to conclude the regular season, with Robert Morris suffering an 83-65 loss.

Toole has no choice but to look ahead to the Colonials’ next (and potentially last) game.

But his team’s year-long performance seems to have left Toole, in his 14th season at the helm in Moon, somewhat exasperated.

“I think we’re hoping to see some progress,” Toole said. “Sometimes I feel like we’ve made progress and then other times I feel like we’re still talking about the things that we were talking about in September.

“It’s a frustrating thing from a coaching perspective, because you pride yourself on the ability to teach, your ability to improve, your ability to make adjustments, your ability to see some of that progress. And we’re still talking about some of the same themes and some of the same mistakes.”

Robert Morris’ current skid dates to Feb. 14, a 10-point loss to Youngstown State.

Defeats of 30 points to Wright State and 20 points at the hands of Oakland came next, followed by a tough 73-71 loss at home to Cleveland State before Northern Kentucky cruised to victory Feb. 28 in the Colonials’ home finale.

Over the last two weeks, nothing the Colonials have done has translated to wins.

“I felt like at Youngstown, I don’t think we really were connected and competing at the level we needed to,” Toole said. “Wright State was a no-show. (At home) against Oakland, (I) didn’t think we had that same fight. Cleveland State in the second half we certainly had the fight, but we were down 11 at the half, so it makes it harder to come back.

“And then (vs. Northern Kentucky), same thing — things got a little bit hard, and no one was really stepping up to rally everyone together to say, ‘Hey, come on. Let’s keep fighting.’ ”

The Colonials dropped three Horizon League contests by a single basket and lost another to Green Bay in overtime Feb. 8.

While their recent results won’t offer much momentum heading into Tuesday at Purdue Fort Wayne, the Colonials can draw from having bested the Mastodons this year, a 91-88 overtime win Jan. 12 in Moon.

The Colonials also will look to their seniors — leading scorer (14.5) and rebounder (7.8) Markeese Hastings, plus Josh Corbin and Jackson Last — to help initiate an end-of-season turnaround.

“Time is dwindling,” Toole said. “We’ve got to try to use the amount of time we have left to respect the game and play it the right way.”

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