DeSean Goode observed with great interest the amazing scene unfolding on a campus just outside Pittsburgh a year ago as the college basketball season picked up its usual maddening pace come March.
What he witnessed, mostly from afar, was a hyper-competitive team, led by its laser-focused coach, careening into the postseason with a chip on its shoulder and ready to take on all challengers on the way to its first Horizon League Tournament championship.
A year later, it appears to be happening again.
Only this time, Goode is in the middle of it all following his transfer within the Horizon League to Robert Morris from IU Indianapolis, where he was a member of the conference’s All-Freshman Team.
“As soon as I made the switch and came here, everything felt like family,” he said Tuesday at UPMC Events Center on that very suburban Pittsburgh campus in Moon a day after being named Horizon League Player of the Year.
“Everything felt right.”
And, oh, have things ever gone right for Goode in his first season in a Robert Morris uniform.
Not only did he earn the league’s top player award — the second in a row for an RMU player — but he is the Colonials’ second-leading scorer (15.4 ppg) and was the conference’s leading rebounder (8.6 rpg) during the regular season.
With Goode in the mix this time, No. 2 seed Robert Morris (21-10) will attempt to repeat as Horizon Tournament champion beginning with a first-round game Wednesday night against visiting No. 9 Youngstown State (15-16).
The Colonials, who won seven games in a row to close the regular season, defeated the Penguins in the championship game last season and have beaten them twice this season.
Included was a mid-December overtime affair at UPMC Events Center, where RMU has a five-game winning streak.
Elsewhere in the Horizon Tournament, top-seeded Wright State (20-11), which lost twice in the regular season to Robert Morris, hosts No. 10 Cleveland State (11-21) in one of four remaining first-round games, three of them also Wednesday night.
Cleveland State advanced to the final 10-team field with a 101-93 victory against No. 11 IU Indianapolis (7-25) in a play-in game on Monday night.
The rest of Wednesday’s first-round schedule finds No. 8 Milwaukee (12-19) at No. 3 Detroit Mercy (15-14) and No. 7 Northern Kentucky (18-13) at No. 4 Oakland (16-15).
In a first-round game Tuesday night, No. 5 Green Bay eliminated No. 6 Purdue Fort Wayne, 64-56. Green Bay improves to 18-14, while Purdue Fort Wayne falls to 17-15.
The tournament shifts to Corteva Coliseum in Indianapolis for a second-round game Sunday involving the lowest-seeded first-round winners.
The semifinals will be held Monday, and the championship game is set for 7 p.m. Tuesday, all nationally televised.
Indeed, Robert Morris coach Andy Toole, whose intense demeanor serves as a symbol of his players’ late-season rise, seems glad to have coaxed Goode to come to his side. He’s wildly happy, too, with another group that has proven its desire, he said, to win every time out.
“These guys don’t have the same personality as last year’s group,” Toole said of that 15th-seeded team that finished 26-9 after a hard-fought 90-81 loss to No. 2 Arizona in an NCAA Tournament first-round game, “but they’ve got the same mindset of wanting to win, wanting to be successful, wanting to taste the chase of a championship.”
For Goode, his arrival at Robert Morris has been a night-and-day change from a year ago at IU Indy, which made an early exit from the Horizon Tournament with a first-round loss to Wright State.
“It’s a surreal moment coming into a new team and having everyone’s help to support me,” said the 6-foot-8 Goode. “I wouldn’t be who I am without my team, my coaches, my trainers and everyone believing in me.”
Perhaps there’s a simple reason Goode won Horizon Player of the Year: He’s really good.
The native of Fairmont, W.Va., also leads the conference in field-goal percentage (63.3).
“It is a good personal goal,” Goode, unaware of that play-on-words, said of the nod as top player in the conference. “But we still have goals as a team that we want to accomplish, so that’s the main focus.”
Nearby, teammate Ryan Prather Jr., the only returning player from last season’s team, nodded in agreement.
“Nothing else matters now,” said Prather, a 6-5 senior, who barely outscores Goode as Robert Morris’ leading point producer (15.6 ppg). “If we lose, we go home. Our mindset is to chase that championship.”
Again.
With the final quest already underway, Goode & Co. are hoping for another joyous ending for the Colonials.
What he recalls about that top-seeded Robert Morris team that went on to its first Horizon Tournament championship was a connected bunch, one that boasted the star power of a champion, including the Horizon League Player of the Year (Alvaro Folgueiras) and the Defensive Player of the Year (Amarion Dickerson).
Of course, Goode could never forget the architect of the Colonials’ rise to the top in five short seasons since joining the Horizon, the intently passionate Toole, who just so happened to be the latest conference coach of the year.
“I remember it pretty vividly,” Goode said, referring back to his first college season while at IU Indianapolis. “They were kind of playing like we’re playing now. They got hot. Everything worked out for them. They were playing good basketball, defensively and offensively. Obviously, I wasn’t in the locker room. I was on the other side. They were doing everything right. That’s what it comes down to.”
Now, with an eye on those very same qualities, Goode is on their side.