To get to San Antonio, the Alabama basketball team must go through Cleveland.
That’s because the second-seeded Crimson Tide will travel to that great city resting on the banks of Lake Erie to play Robert Morris University in the opening round of the 2025 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament.
Just for fun, go ahead and rattle off six or seven things you know about Robert Morris University and its basketball team. You probably have the starting five memorized, know all the campus pedigree information, including landmarks, endowment, and the school’s mission and focus. Shoot, you may even have a tattoo of the Robert Morris mascot “Romo”—the fiery-haired Revolutionary—on your left calf.
Wait…what’s that? Oh, you’re a season ticket holder? Well, excuse me!
In all seriousness, you may not know a whole lot about Robert Morris University and when you saw that Alabama drew the Colonials in the first round of March Madness, you probably thought, “Who the heck is Robert Morris?”
First, RMU is located in Moon Township, Pennsylvania. Not ringing a bell? What about Pittsburgh…ever heard of that? Well, Moon Township is just northwest of Pittsburgh, and home to the Pittsburgh International Airport.
So, if someone asks you where Robert Morris is, just say “Pittsburgh.”
Secondly, Robert Morris competes in a conference called the Horizon League. Curious as to the other teams RMU competes against in that conference? I bet you are. There’s Cleveland State, Detroit Mercy, Green Bay, IU Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Northern Kentucky, Oakland, Purdue Fort Wayne, Wright State, and Youngstown State.
One thing about the Horizon League: mascots are elite. There’s the Norse (Northern Kentucky), the Mastodons (Purdue Fort Wayne), the Penguins (Youngstown State), the Golden Grizzlies (Oakland), and the Phoenix (Green Bay).
And because Horizon League teams are principally located in the Rust Belt and surrounding states: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Wisconsin, etc., the Crimson Tide will literally be walking into enemy territory on Friday.
Now to the team itself. The Colonials are coached by Andrew Toole, a 44-year-old University of Pennsylvania grad originally from Red Bank, NJ. Poole has been the head coach at Robert Morris for the last 15 years and has an overall record of 252-240 (.512) during his time in Moon Township. He’s led the Colonials to two NCAA tournaments, receiving automatic bids in 2015 and 2020. Since the 2020 NCAA tournament was cancelled due to the pandemic, the lone tournament Toole and the Colonials have competed in together was the 2015 tournament, where RMU was a 16-seed. The Colonials did manage to come out of the First Four game that year by defeating North Florida, 81-77, but then faced 1-seed Duke (Jahlil Okafor, Quinn Cook) in the Round of 64. RMU lost 85-66 to the Blue Devils.
The 2024-25 season for Toole and his team has been quite remarkable, considering the Colonials were 10-22 last season and 6-14 in the Horizon League. RMU is 26-8 (15-5 Horizon League) and were the league’s regular season champions and tournament champions.
The Colonials are led in scoring by Kam Woods, an Alabama native. Woods averages 15.1 points per game and was the Barbasol Horizon League Men’s Basketball Championship MVP. He played basketball at Pinson Valley High School and Midfield High School and was named 6A Player of the Year twice. He led Pinson to a 6A state title in 2019 and Midfield to a Class 3A crown in 2017. Collegiately, Woods has been around the block, so to speak. He started out at Troy, then moved over to Northwest Florida State junior college, then North Carolina A&T, then NC State before finally landing at RMU. A 6’2” guard, Woods also leads the team in assists (5.1) and pulls down 4.6 rebounds per game. He had a game high of 29 against Oakland on January 4, and, given his Alabama roots, expect him to shoot for similar numbers against the Crimson Tide.
Other major scoring contributors for the Colonials include: Alvaro Folgueiras, a 6’9” forward from Malaga, Spain, averaging 14.1 ppg and 9.1 rpg; Amarion Dickerson, a 6’7” guard/forward from Cleveland, averaging 12.9 ppg and 5.9 rpg; and Josh Omojafo, a 6’5” guard from Hamilton, Ontario, who averages 11.4 ppg and 3.8 rpg.
RMU had some bad losses earlier in the season but seems to have righted the ship. A 28-point demerit to West Virginia and a 17-point loss to Ohio stand out, but the Colonials picked up a big win against Cornell on November 21 and are coming into the NCAA tournament on two wheels, having won the last 10 straight.
Alabama’s tournament success seems to be hinging on Grant Nelson’s knee, but at the end of the week, the Tide will have to face a hungry, upset-minded Division I opponent.
We’ll find out at 11:40 CDT on Friday if Alabama will take the first step toward San Antonio, or if the Colonials will stage a revolution. TG
Photos courtesy Robert Morris Athletics
