Robert Morris men survive in wild double-OT win over Detroit Mercy

TJ Wainwright considered the possibility of Robert Morris being “that team,” but he said the Colonials were determined not to allow Detroit Mercy to get its first men’s basketball victory of the season.

Even when things were looking bleak.

“I kept telling the guys, ‘We’re still going to win this game. We’re not going to be on the headlines,’” said the sophomore shooting guard from Los Angeles, whose career-high 30 points helped spark Robert Morris’ come-from-behind, 102-99, double-overtime victory Wednesday night at UPMC Events Center.

Later, Wainwright reflected on the wild victory with teammate and close friend Markeese Hastings, who, by the way, outdid him by scoring a team-high 31 points, telling Hastings how “amazing” it felt to be part of the night.

Both players wound up with career highs in scoring, but they cherished another victory the most. Hastings, who added 15 rebounds, was 17 for 17 from the free-throw line, where Robert Morris finished a sizzling 36 for 40 (90%).

“Just for us to have this performance tonight is great,” Wainwright said. “It was straight out of a movie, honestly, for us to get this win and play like that. It was amazing.”

Five days after beating one of the best teams in the Horizon League, Robert Morris struggled against the worst.

Somehow, the Colonials (7-12, 3-5) survived — in overtime.

Again.

In fact, in two overtimes this time around.

Hastings and Wainwright led the way for Robert Morris to notch its second consecutive marathon victory.

It was Hastings’ desperation 3-point buzzer-beater Friday that lifted the Colonials to a 91-88 overtime victory over Purdue Fort Wayne, a team battling for the top spot in the Horizon League standings.

Detroit Mercy (0-19, 0-8), however, has been operating on another spectrum.

“We didn’t want to be that team to give them their first win,” Wainwright said. “It’s a little bit of added pressure towards us because we could’ve made headlines if we’d have lost this game. Not the headlines we’d want. Markeese was on ESPN last week for hitting a buzzer-beater. We could’ve lost this game and been on ESPN for giving them their first win.”

No worries. The Colonials, indeed, survived, despite playing without junior guard Jackson Last, one of their regular starters who sat on the Robert Morris bench in street clothes with his arm in a sling, the result of an undisclosed injury in practice on Tuesday. Toole said he expected Last to be available Saturday for the Colonials’ next game at IUPUI.

A year after former Detroit Mercy point guard Antoine Davis came within four points of breaking Pete Maravich’s all-time college scoring record, the Titans remain one of two winless teams in Division I, joining Mississippi Valley State, which will try for its first victory on Saturday against Bethune-Cookman.

Detroit Mercy’s other losses include three close outcomes in out-of-conference games to Mississippi (70-69), Ball State (68-65) and Eastern Michigan (76-72).

“They played with a lot of desperation,” Hastings said. “I’ve got to give them props for that.”

But Hastings, Wainwright & Co. became desperate, too. And the Colonials, after trailing by 11 points late in the second half, responded with a 10-0 run, including eight by Wainwright, to take a 74-71 lead after coach Andy Toole was whistled for a technical foul for arguing with officials following a foul call against his team.

“I don’t like getting technicals because I don’t like the idea of offering other teams the opportunity to score points,” Toole said. “But I kind of got frustrated and thought we had no life.”

But Detroit Mercy was able to force overtime, not once but twice.

Robert Morris jumped to a 20-7 lead but went cold and fell behind when Detroit Mercy used a 16-2 run to assume a 23-22 lead on driving layup by Jayden Stone, who led the Titans with a career-high 36 points in his second game back following an injury that kept the senior guard sidelined for six games.

“He changes the complexion of their team,” Toole said. “He’s an all-league player. We didn’t do a great job slowing him down.”

Stone banked in a 3-point shot with four seconds left in double overtime to pull Detroit Mercy within 100-99 before Justice Williams sank two free throws for Robert Morris to give the Colonials a three-point advantage.

Detroit Mercy came out of a timeout with three seconds left and set up a last-second chance to send the game into a third extra session. But Marcus Tankersley’s long 3-point shot was off the mark, and Robert Morris survived.

Again.

“That was wild,” Toole said. “I don’t know what to say. I thought we had lost it about 12 times, won it 11, and then, finally, we were able to pull it out at the end.”

It marked the third win in the past four games for the Colonials, who also got 16 points from Williams.

Tankersley added 29 points and Mak Manciel finished with 16 for Detroit Mercy.

Toole would like to see more one-sided decisions going his team’s way, but he wasn’t complaining for now.

“I don’t really care how we get them — if it’s overtime, if it’s regulation — we’re just trying to be one point better,” he said.