Who's No. 1, Andy Toole's current Colonials or Matt Furjanic's Robert Morris teams from the '80s?

Andy Toole said he might get text messages from people challenging his claim that this season’s Robert Morris team is the best in school history.

Matt Furjanic didn’t send a text, but he certainly could have an argument with Toole. Furjanic coached the first Robert Morris teams that went to the NCAA Tournament in 1982 and 1983.

Toole’s team tied a school record with 26 victories and slugged it out with No. 2 seed Alabama on Friday before losing 90-81 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in Cleveland.

Furjanic’s teams had Robert Morris Hall of Famers Chipper Harris (Valley High School) and Forest Grant (Beaver Falls) and nearly upset Purdue in 1983, losing 55-53 on a 25-foot jumper by the Boilermakers’ Steve Reid with 3 seconds left. They were 40-21 over two seasons, including beating Georgia Southern in a 1983 play-in game. Harris, who died in 2018, scored 1,942 career points, second all-time. Grant set a school record with 555 assists.

The school thought so highly of those teams it named the locker rooms in their honor. Even in defeat, Robert Morris has been able to raise the school’s profile.

Furjanic remembers the USA Today headline before Robert Morris played Indiana in the 1982 tournament

“Bobby Knight vs. Bobby Who? An administrator told me, ‘Matt, that’s why we went D-I. That headline is priceless.’ “

But who’s better, Toole’s team or Furjanic’s teams?

“It’s like comparing who’s the greatest, Wilt Chamberlain or Michael Jordan or LeBron James,” Furjanic said. “That can go on forever. Everyone loves their team. Everyone loves their players. I feel the same way about mine, and (Toole) feels the same way about his.

“Wilt Chamberlain won’t play against Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan doesn’t play against LeBron. My team won’t play against his team. I’d like to play them, but we can’t.

“But we’re all in the same family. It’s like having older brothers and younger brothers. The younger brothers are saying they’re good. Well, guess what? Maybe the older brothers are good. Maybe the uncles are better than the nephews.”

Furjanic, an RMU Hall of Famer, is a Robert Morris season-ticket holder and Rankin native who now lives in Monroeville after a five-decade career that produced 606 victories. During the game Friday, he was part of a 27-person text message chain that included several of his players from the 1980s. Furjanic said all of them are proud that they once wore the RMU colors (even though some questioned why they never had the sharp red jerseys displayed on national television).

“All those players were so proud of what Robert Morris was doing,” Furjanic said. “When Robert Morris took that one-point lead with about seven minutes left, everybody on the group text — 27 of them — were all making comments. It was fantastic. It was a sense of pride that we’re a part of that family.

“Credit to Andy Toole. He did a good job of bringing in good character kids who bought into his system and play great defense.”

This year’s team could have challenges to the best-ever claim from perhaps a dozen sources.

They include:

• NCAA Tournament teams in 1989, 1990 and 1992 coached by Robert Morris Hall of Famer Jarrett Durham, won a total of 66 games, including two against West Virginia in Morgantown. 1990 team lost to No. 2 seed Kansas, 79-71.

• The 2008 and 2012 Robert Morris teams that did not go to the NCAA Tournament but also won 26 games and included Toole as an assistant and head coach, respectively.

• The 2010 team (23-12 and No. 15 seed) that lost in overtime to No. 2 Villanova, the year after finishing 24-11.

• The 2015 team (20-15) that won the school’s second NCAA Tournament game, defeating North Florida before losing to eventual national champion Duke, 85-56.

No matter how history views this season’s team, Toole said he never will forget it.

“What does Robert Morris mean to me?” he said Friday after the game in answer to a question. “They gave me a chance to be the head coach of the university at 29 years old, which most places, that doesn’t happen. It’s a unique place filled with special people. Through good and bad, we’ve always been supported. As you saw (Friday), the way that people came out to support this team and this program.”

He said he hopes his players are remembered for becoming a team.

“I love teams,” Toole said. “I’ve been on a team since I’ve been 4 years old, and I just love when people are willing to sacrifice in order for the greater good. They did that, and that’s more rare than it should be, I think, in this day and age. And there’s so many that are looking, trying to figure out what they can get out of every situation that they’re involved in, instead of what they can give, and these guys gave every day. Through good and bad, through me annoying them, they gave. They gave.

“They got on each other. They held each other accountable. They challenged each other. That’s what teams are supposed to be about.”