Robert Morris looks to add to highlight-filled season vs. Alabama in NCAA Tournament

Robert Morris’ rotation is tight. On most occasions, it goes just seven players deep.

The pride of this particular team, however, extends much further.

“Again,” Robert Morris coach Andy Toole began, about to repeat the team’s unofficial slogan, “all year long, we’ve had a group of guys that have been about winning and wanting to win.”

It goes beyond the starters, beyond the regulars. It permeates the entire program.

On Thursday, Toole told a heartwarming story of inspiration about a Robert Morris team that has been inspiring its fans since the start of its current, mind-blowing run of 16 wins in 17 games. The 15th-seeded Colonials (26-8) hope to continue their run when they face No. 2 Alabama (25-8) at 12:40 p.m. Friday in an NCAA Tournament East Region first-round game at Rocket Arena in Cleveland.

“Not speaking out of turn here,” Toole said, “but our director of basketball operations, Matt Sweet, a couple years ago had had a bout with cancer at 28 years old.”

Toole explained that Sweet, before the Horizon League Tournament championship game against Youngstown State earlier this month, had written on the bottom of the Penguins’ scouting report, “Highlight of your life.”

“As we were going through our pregame stuff, when we got to that point,” Toole said, “coach Sweet spoke up. He basically said, ‘When you have an incredible death situation like I did with cancer, you’re going to reflect on the highlights of your life. Going to the NCAA Tournament is a highlight of your life.’

“He urged the guys to go make a highlight of their lives.”

It began by beating Youngstown State and giving Robert Morris its first Horizon Tournament championship.

Next up is Alabama in a game that will be played in the hometown of RMU’s Amarion Dickerson.

“I feel like we have a great group of guys that really established a brotherhood over the course of the months we’ve been together,” Dickerson said. “I feel like we definitely have a huge chance to go on a great run in this great tournament.”

Back in the NCAA Tournament after a nine-year absence — they qualified in 2020 but couldn’t play because of the covid-19 pandemic — the Colonials will rely on their tight-knit lineup of mostly first-year transfers to contend with high-flying Alabama’s expected Herculean resistance.

The Crimson Tide are the nation’s best-scoring team.

“It’s going to take an incredible effort,” Toole said. “You’re playing against a 91-point scoring team, the No. 1 pace in the country. It’s going to take a momentous defensive effort. It’s going to take a connected defensive effort, where guys are constantly willing to make the next effort, make the next run, communicate the next screening action, rotate properly, contest everything.”

After beating no less than 11 Associated Press Top-25 teams, Alabama encountered a blip late, losing three of its past five games, including a 104-82 decision to eventual SEC champion Florida in the conference tournament semifinal.

It was the Crimson Tide’s second loss in 16 days to the Gators.

To Toole, of course, it was of no consolation.

“I’ve told the guys that what we need to do is everything we’ve worked on all year long,” he said. “But we’ve got to do it at, by far, the highest level that we’ve done it all year. That’s going to be the challenge (Friday).”

Despite Alabama’s late-season lull — one of its two victories in March was a 93-91 overtime win over Auburn, the NCAA Tournament’s No. 1 overall seed — coach Nate Oats was feeling optimistic upon the team’s arrival in Ohio earlier this week.

He said, simply: “We’re excited to be here.”

But Oats surely was hoping his team wouldn’t look past upstart Robert Morris.

“They’re good,” he said of the Colonials. “To have the (team’s) leading scorer (Kam Woods), the Defensive Player of the Year in your conference (Dickerson) and the Player of the Year in your conference (Alvaro Folgueiras) be three different guys says a lot about the depth and the talent that they’ve got.

“Our guys need to recognize that. I think they do.”

Alabama was routinely challenged in a 16-team SEC that ranks as the toughest conference in the nation with an NCAA-record 14 teams in the tournament field.

“We obviously played a tough regular season,” Oats said.

A total of 25 of the Tide’s 33 games have been against other NCAA Tournament teams.

“They’re all good teams when you get to this tournament. We’re prepared,” Oats said.