Robert Morris guard Kam Woods thought his Colonials would be one line higher when the NCAA bracket was unveiled Sunday.
“I really thought we were going to be a 14-seed,” Woods said. “I really felt that some conferences who aren’t on our level got the 14-seed. But that goes to what the NCAA has going on. I thought we were going to get that Wisconsin game (against 14th-seeded Montana instead). That would’ve been a good one.”
Instead, the Colonials are a 15th seed going up against SEC power Alabama. But the trade-off is that the team has to make only a short drive to Cleveland to play the game Friday afternoon.
“It’s Bobby Mo’ in O-hi-o,” Woods exclaimed. “We played two games in Indianapolis (for the Horizon League Tournament). That’s kind of far. But, man, the fans came out and supported us way more than we thought. Us being in Cleveland, I know for sure the city is going to be out, and that’s going to feel good.”
As for RMU coach Andy Toole, he said he didn’t have much of an agenda one way or another when it came to seeding or locations.
“Sometimes in this tournament, it’s fun to jump on a plane and go somewhere. But it’ll be great because we’ll get really good support in Cleveland,” Toole said. “But I don’t think we had a rooting interest like, ‘I hope we are here. I hope we play these guys.’ We are thankful to be in the tournament. We knew whoever we were going to play was going to be a high-level team.”
In this case, it’s the second-seeded Crimson Tide, the highest-scoring team in college basketball at 91.1 points per game. The Colonials allowed 70.4 points per game, second-fewest in the Horizon League.
“We’ve been competing in every single game, every single time,” Horizon League Player of the Year Alvaro Folgueiras said. “The pride of this group; we don’t give a (darn) about who is in front (of us). The next game is not going to be different.”
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Woods is a player who has been down this path. He was on the 11th-seeded N.C. State Wolfpack team that went all the way to the Final Four last year.
“It’s a regular game,” Woods said. “The feelings are going to be the same. More people are going to be watching. But you’ve got to shoot the ball into the same net. The goal is 10 feet. You are playing with the same-sized ball. And (your opponent) is waking up the same as you.”
A native of Alabama, Woods says RMU can draw from the experience they had playing West Virginia in the season opener. Like Alabama, the Mountaineers are from a major conference. Many feel they were snubbed by the NCAA selection committee and should’ve been in the tournament themselves. While WVU dumped the Colonials, 87-59, in November, the team now knows what to expect from a high major opponent.
“Playing games like that helps,” Woods said. “Not just playing mid-major games and winning all of them. Going and playing a game where you might lose by 20, it worked. If we didn’t have that game under our belt the whole year, we wouldn’t know what we would be going into.”
As a coach, Toole knows what the Colonials are getting into. Even though RMU’s last trip to the NCAA Tournament was scrubbed due to the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, he was also on the bench in 2015 when RMU won a First Four game in Dayton and then battled ACC blue blood Duke in the first round before losing 85-56.
“All year long, I’ve grown to trust these guys and their level of competitiveness,” Toole said. “In the biggest moments of the big games, those guys competed really hard whether we won or lost. They took it at a level of professionalism and seriousness, and they competed really hard. So I know we are going to come out and compete hard.”
Going up against Alabama, it will take more than just a high motor to go 1-0 in O-hi-o. But as Woods and Toole can both attest, it’s at least a good place to start.