Robert Morris basketball coach Andy Toole on RMU's season and point shaving
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Welcome back to Pomp and Joe. Needless to say, Bob's not here. Where'd Bob go? Do we have that part of the song, Limits? No, Bob has the day off today. He'll be back tomorrow. In the meantime, we have a jam-packed show here, including right now on the Sullivan Super Service fan hotline, Pittsburgh's trusted plumbing and HVAC provider for over 50 years, Robert Morris basketball coach Andy Toole, a friend of the show, his 16th year at RMU. Andy, how are you? I'm doing well, guys. How are you doing? We're doing good. We were just reminiscing about last year's crazy game with Alabama and also about your run to the tournament. How are you feeling about this year's team? You've won five of seven here. It looks like you're heating up at the right time.
We're starting to play better and a little more consistent.
How is RMU's basketball team performing this season?
Obviously, we're still on a day-to-day basis here in terms of our execution. We let some games get away early in the conference year by not being as focused on the task at hand as we need to be. And, you know, some possessions early in games kind of came back to cost us later on. And, you know, I think we've made some growth and some strides in that direction. But each one of our games so far in the Horizon League has been, you know, so tightly contested. You know, we played probably out of the 15 games we played, we probably played, you know, close to 10 one possession or two possession games. So there's still a lot of work to be done. But we're trending in the right direction. But I say that with some cautious optimism.
When you come down to those one possession games, Andy, do you like to try to control it as a coach more often than not? Or do you like to sort of give your players the freedom to kind of do what they do at the ends of games, at least offensively?
Well, I think it's a combination of both. I think there's been times where, you know, we felt like in this situation, maybe the game is tied and there's under 10 seconds left, you know, calling the timeout might not be the play. Maybe it's, trying to get a quick push down the floor, see if you can gain advantage and find a great shot without having to allow the defense to get set. Um, sometimes depending on your team, you know, you want to call that time out quickly and get them organized because they might not be able to organize themselves quite as well. Right. So some of it's year to year, some of it's, you know, um, you know, opponent to opponent. So it's a combination of both, but obviously like a lot of coaches across the country, stuff we talk about, you know, consistently, we practice consistently.
There's things that we know we want to try to do late game. And then you hope that your preparation, you know, carries into that moment and you're able to execute.
I imagine you're immersed in the moment right now, but that game last year, the NCAA tournament game against Alabama was crazy and entertaining. How do you look back on that one?
Um, you know, just thankful to be a part of it. I mean, that, that group of guys and those, those players that were on that team, you know, sacrificed a lot. They came a long way, uh, as they, as they came together as a group during the course of the season, you know, we went on an unbelievable, you know, six week, uh, run, you know, where we were playing basketball at a super high level. Uh, and it kind of culminated with that game in the NCAA tournament. And, uh, I was just thankful to be a part of it. And, um, you know, look back really fondly on that group of guys and the way that they competed and connected as the year went on.
We've talked about this before, and we're talking to RMU basketball coach Andy Toole. We've talked about this before, Andy, but the challenges for your school, other schools, and your other like schools in your conference, just with NIL, with Transfer Portal, with things like that, have you settled into this new reality? How many guys are on your team from last year, for example?
One. One. But it's not just an RMU problem. It's not just a Horizon League problem.
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