Robert Morris loses at home to IUPUI, Division I's worst team in NET rankings

Andy Toole immediately realized it. The Robert Morris basketball coach surmised early on that his players weren’t prepared for their Horizon League rematch Thursday night with lowly IUPUI.

He was right.

Toole said the Colonials were “the dummies” who lost at home to a team dead-last among 358 Division I schools in the NCAA NET rankings after having beaten IUPUI by 17 points on the road in their first meeting in early February.

B.J. Maxwell and Bakari LaStrap scored 18 points apiece, and IUPUI, with just six healthy players, registered its first victory over a Division I opponent this season, 66-56 over Robert Morris at UPMC Events Center.

IUPUI (3-22, 1-13 Horizon), which came in with just two victories against lower-classification schools, shot 50 % (23 for 46) and led nearly wire-to-wire.

“Credit IUPUI,” Toole said. “They played incredibly well. They’ve been faced with such tough circumstances throughout the entire year, and they’ve never stopped playing, never stopped trying to get better, never stopped trying to execute and do the right stuff.”

Robert Morris (7-20, 5-13), which handled IUPUI on Feb. 5, 66-49, at Indiana Farmers Coliseum in Indianapolis, shot just 38.8 % (19 for 49) in the latest meeting.

Asked if the Colonials had experienced an emotional letdown after ending Youngstown State’s six-game winning streak with a come-from-behind, road victory Sunday over the Penguins, Toole paused to digest the suggestion.

“Maybe, if you’d like to point to that, that’d be great,” he said. “I don’t know, when you’re a seven-win team, how you can feel you’re better than anybody else? You’re the 10th-place team playing the 12th-place team. It’s not like you’ve been running the table. For there to be an emotional letdown is very disappointing.”

Mike DePersia added 13 points for IUPUI, which pulled away down the stretch as Robert Morris played uninspired all night.

“A lot of it just comes back to not respecting the game the way you’re supposed to and giving it the effort that it deserves,” Toole said. “When you disrespect things, you usually get disrespected back. Congratulations to IUPUI on the win because they certainly deserved the win. We also got what we deserved, which was a loss, and that’s something that’s incredibly disappointing. They kicked our butt.”

Matt Mayers’ 12 points led Robert Morris, which hosts Illinois-Chicago on Saturday night. Kahliel Spear added 10 for the Colonials, who committed 15 turnovers, 10 in the first half.

“We were so far behind, mentally,” Toole said. “Two assists and 10 turnovers in the first half?”

The teams were deadlocked, 24-24, at intermission.

“They were up by 12 points at UIC (Monday night). They’ve been close a number of times,” Toole said. “It was bound to happen. Along the line, there was going to be an opponent who thought they could just show up and win, and we were the dummies that did it.”

The teams jockeyed for control for much of the second half, the lead never reaching more than four points for IUPUI until the Jaguars used an 11-0 run to build a 63-52 cushion with 26 seconds left.

Toole said it was a remarkable performance by IUPUI, considering its limited roster. The Jaguars have had just six players in uniform over the past eight games. Five others have sustained season-ending injuries.

“We played one year with eight,” he said. “That was hard. We’re playing with nine now. That’s hard. I can’t imagine playing with six. Credit their staff, their players for the way they’re working, the way they continue to play the right way, the way they seem to be respecting the game, believing in each other, trusting in each other.”

As he continued to praise the opposition, Toole seemingly was directing it at his own players, as well.

“We really were not ready to play this game. That was apparent at the start,” he said. “We talked all week about respecting your opponent. When you don’t do that, you usually get yourself in a tough spot.

“When you’re not ready to go, and all of a sudden emotion and anxiety and pressure and all those things start to build, if you’re not ready to go, you just get exposed. You just crack. We just had so many cracks tonight that it was an embarrassment.”