Late free throws lead Morgan past Robert Morris

by Keith Henry

Two free throws from Aric Brooks with 13.4 seconds left turned out to be the difference in Morgan State's 67-66 victory over Robert Morris at Hill Field House tonight.

Brooks stated about the play leading to the foul shots, "When I brought the ball across half court, I was waiting for one of the point guards to come because we was going to set a play up. But they were getting denied. So I just wanted to attack the basket and the ref called a foul. You know the rest of the story."

Brooks and DeWayne Jackson were the only Bears to score in double figures in the game. Jackson led everyone with 25 points while Brooks followed with 13.

Morgan State (5-6) took control early using a 15-0 run in the first half. Down 7-4, Jackson scored 11 of the 15 points, including a three-point play with 13:22 left to give the Bears a 19-7 advantage. MSU head coach Todd Bozeman said about the run, "We were aggressive and we got to stay aggressive. That's something that we have to continue to work on. So we'll keep grinding it out."

The Colonials were able to get out of the doldrums and cut the Morgan advantage to 29-25 on a lay-up by Deion Turman with 1:16 left in the half. But the Bears led 34-28 at the half.

RMU used their quickness on offense to eventually tie the game at 42 on a Lijah Thompson lay-up with 11:51 left. But the Colonials couldn't take advantage of numerous opportunities a little later on with missed free throws and three point shots that fell very short of the mark. Morgan State retook the lead 44-42 on an Ameer Ali dunk with 9:59 left.

Robert Morris (4-8) still had plenty of opportunies to turn the momentum around in their favor. However, the Colonials just couldn't capitalize on numerous oportunities inside the paint. RMU head coach Andrew Toole said about that, "I can't imagine the number of lay-ups that we missed. I would have to say it's in the double digits just off my recollection right now.we're going to go back and watch the filmand we'll get an exact number. But we left a ton of points out on the table. We didn't execute the way we needed to offensively."

However, the Colonials finally took the lead on a Thompson dunk with 22 seconds left off the assist from Karon Abraham.

After that, Brooks made the critical decision and pushed the ball up the court, which led to the game winning free throws.

Robert Morris had one more chance at it. But Velton Jones, who led RMU with 15 points, drove to the hoop and missed a lay-up attempt with 1.3 seconds left. Jackson came down with the rebound and wrapped the game up.

Morgan starts the new year on January 4 with a trip to Waco, Texas for a battle with #23 Baylor before going into MEAC play next Saturday against Howard at Hill Field House.