Robert Morris falls to Bowling Green, suffers first loss of the season

The Robert Morris men’s basketball team hadn’t played a competitive game since Dec. 5, and it showed Friday as the Colonials fell to Bowling Green, 85-65.

Bowling Green guard Justin Turner turned in a near triple-double as he scored 24 points, dished out 11 assists and grabbed eight rebounds to lead the Falcons (5-2) to a wire-to-wire victory. AJ Bramah led the Colonials (1-1) with 20 points and eight rebounds. He was the only Colonial to score in double-digits.

“Bowling Green is a really good team, and, obviously, Justin Turner is a really good player, as well as Daeqwon Plowden. They just get so many contributions from so many different guys, it’s hard,” Robert Morris coach Andy Toole said. “There were certain things I definitely liked about their first effort against a Division I team, and we still have a lot to get better at also.”

The Falcons, who had nine players score, jumped out to a 14-5 lead after nine minutes. They were aided by a poor-shooting start from the Colonials.

Robert Morris missed its first nine shots from the field and scored its first five points from the free-throw line. Senior forward Charles Bain finally broke the slump with 10 minutes, 38 seconds to play in the first half, and the Colonials quickly closed the gap.

With 7:26 left before the break, freshman guard Enoch Cheeks, who was just the 11th freshman in program history to crack the starting five in his collegiate debut Dec. 5, launched a breakout pass to Bramah, who finished with an emphatic dunk and cut the lead to two points.

“That’s one of the things you want to see from your team: How do they respond when they get down?” Toole said. “I thought the response was good, and I thought some of the communication in the huddle during the timeouts was good. The guys were talking about making good shots following the ball and finishing possessions with rebounds.”

The Falcons took a four-point lead into halftime. That run in the first half was one of the last signs of life for the Colonials, though, as the Falcons dominated the second half.

After Turner and junior guard Caleb Fields controlled most of the scoring in the first half, Plowden got going in the second half and finished with 15 points and a team-high 13 rebounds. The Falcons outscored the Colonials, 44-28, in the second half.

“We just didn’t have enough guys that were able to come in and contribute,” Toole said. “We’ll look at a number of the defensive breakdowns, especially in the second half, as things that really ended up determining the game.”

The Colonials opened their season with a 75-57 victory over Point Park during the first week of December but have had a 12-day layoff since.

And with a lack of practice time because of covid-related issues, the Colonials have struggled to jell as a team. It showed on multiple occasions Friday, but senior guard Jon Williams, who scored eight points, said it will come with time.

“This is a whole new team with a lot of young guys and things of that nature,” Williams said. “We just have to constantly be in their ear, and, obviously, experience is the best learner, and we don’t have our identity yet … and we haven’t had enough scar tissue.”

The Colonials will look to get back on track on Sunday when they take on nonconference opponent Marshall at 2 p.m.