Men's Basketball: Lack of turnovers sinks Mount

EMMITSBURG - When Mount St. Mary's is forcing turnovers with pressure defense and scoring in transition, the Mountaineers tend to light up the scoreboard. But when the opposition handles the MSM press, well, the scoreboard doesn't move much.

The Mount produced just five points off of turnovers on Saturday and struggled against the zone as Robert Morris used a 16-5 second-half run to win 77-69 at Knott Arena.

Mount St. Mary's (6-11, 2-2 in the NEC) went just 7 for 29 on 3-pointers, tallied only eight fastbreak points and couldn't figure out how to penetrate RM's 2-3 zone. The Mountaineers fell to 6-16 when failing to score at least 70 points during coach Jamion Christian's 1 1/2 seasons on the job. They're 18-9 when they get to 70.

Christian said the Mount's sputtering offense had less to do with the Robert Morris zone than with the fact that his team forced only 10 turnovers.

"If we can get to 16 turnovers it's a completely different game and we're not playing against the zone at all," he said. "It all starts with our defensive pressure.

"One thing that happens in our style of play, I think you always anticipate going on a 10-0 run. When you play really good teams, it's harder to do that."

Rashad Whack led all scorers with 22 points and Sam Prescott had 16, scoring the 1,000th point of his college career in the process. But Julian Norfleet managed only 11 after averaging 26.8 over his previous four games.

Whack and Norfleet combined to go just 3 for 16 on 3s, often shooting from 25 feet or more.

"Usually Rashad and Julian make those type of 3s. I expect them to go in every time," Prescott said. "Today, they just didn't fall."

Whack said it wasn't a matter of the zone pushing the Mountaineers too far away.

"I've just got to have awareness on the court," said Whack, who is averaging 22.6 points per game over his last five contests.

The soft spot in the zone seemed to be in the paint near the basket, so the Mountaineers got the ball to 7-foot center Taylor Danaher more than usual. But he missed six of his nine field goal attempts, all from in close.

"Over his career he's been a pretty high percentage shooter. Today, he just didn't have one of his better days," Christian said. "We needed him to make a few more plays on the inside there. But the reality of it is, we needed a lot of our guys to make a few more plays."

Jeremiah Worthem had 21 for Robert Morris (9-10, 4-0), the only unbeaten team in the NEC. Lucky Jones added 16 points and 10 rebounds as the Colonials beat the Mountaineers 21-10 on the boards in the second half and committed just three turnovers after the intermission.

"They did a great job, had a great game plan, and they executed their game plan better than we did," Christian said.

The Mountaineers led by six points at halftime, by as many as eight in the second half and were still ahead 52-49 with nine minutes to go. That's when the Colonials went on their 16-5 run, scoring on seven consecutive possessions while the Mount was in an offensive funk. It was still a 66-65 game with less than three minutes to play, but Danaher missed a free throw that could've tied it, Byron Ashe missed the front end of a one-and-one, and the Mountaineers went 0 for 5 from long range the rest of the way.

The Colonials made five of their first six shots and led 16-10 after less than 10 minutes. But the Mount held them scoreless on 11 of their next 12 possessions. A quick spurt gave RM a 26-22 lead with four minutes to go, but the Mount finished the half on a 13-3 run.

It was 50-47 after a spectacular sequence that started with a Gregory Graves blocked shot and ended with Sam Prescott converting an alley-oop pass from Khalid Nwandu while being fouled. The Mountaineers, however, failed to score on eight of their next 11 possessions, losing the lead and, eventually, the game.

"It all starts with me and being able to get our team to understand our level of discipline that we've got to have," Christian said. "I felt like we made that run and then we made some unnecessary gambles defensively."