Kevin Gorman: For Robert Morris senior Josh Williams, this is a dance to remember forever

Josh Williams started waving his arms up and down as he walked off the floor, and the capacity crowd stood to salute the Robert Morris redshirt senior with a standing ovation as he exited the Northeast Conference championship game.

It was a fitting farewell for Williams, who has been on a soul-searching mission since missing the NCAA Tournament on a last-second 3-pointer as a freshman. He often wondered whether he would ever get a chance to go to the Big Dance.

Williams saw to it that he and the Colonials would, scoring eight of his 17 points in the final six minutes as Robert Morris beat St. Francis, 77-67, on Tuesday night before a raucous, standing-room-only crowd of 4,034 at UPMC Events Center.

The atmosphere was incredible, as students rushed the court as the Colonials (20-14) clinched the NEC’s automatic tourney berth and a likely trip to the NCAA First Four in Dayton. It was a dream come true for Williams, a 6-foot-2 shooting guard from Akron who had come up empty in championship moments.

“I waited so long … so it feels so good right now,” Williams said as the Colonials took turns climbing the ladder to cut down the net behind him. “You put in the work year after year after year and you come up short. You just want to get a taste of what it’s like, and I finally am able to do that and it feels so good.”

Robert Morris started to pull away early in the second half, which started with Williams sinking a 3-pointer from the top of the key for the Colonials’ first double-digit lead.

When St. Francis tried to protect the perimeter, Williams drove to the basket. When the Red Flash backed off, he made them pay with 3-pointers. He made 4 of 8 shots from beyond the arc, as well as three free throws when fouled while attempting a trey.

That was nothing new. Williams is the first player in Robert Morris history to make 100 3s in season multiple times. He once made 15 treys in scoring a school-record 49 points against Mount Aloysius, his first home game at Robert Morris.

But he had another mission in mind.

It was NCAA tourney or bust.

Williams wanted this stage so bad — a nationally televised game on ESPN with a trip to the NCAAs on the line — that he even waved off Robert Morris coach Andy Toole when asked to switch from defending St. Francis’ top scorer, Keith Braxton.

“He really drove the mission,” Toole said. “Guys followed and listened to him. Not only did he talk the talk, he backed it up. He didn’t want to leave anything to chance, knowing it was his last time around — and I think our guys followed suit and made sure they took care of all the details in order to be successful.”

Toole had Williams talk to the team on Senior Day about how close he had come to clinching a tourney berth, only to fall short. That story starts at Akron, where Buffalo’s Blake Hamilton sank a 3-pointer with two seconds left to beat the Zips by three in the 2016 MAC championship game.

For inspiration, Williams used a favorite quote from Muhammad Ali: Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.

“I’ve been defeated before,” Williams said, “and I didn’t want that to happen again.”

Since transferring to Robert Morris, Williams had watched each season end with defeat in the NEC tourney. So he seized the moment until the substitution with one minute remaining. He didn’t even get to watch the final seconds, as he was being mobbed by hugs from coaches and teammates on the bench. It’s no surprise the NEC championship trophy ended up in his arms, and he hugged it and cradled it like a newborn baby.

“To lead these guys and to have them accept me as a leader, it means so much,” Williams said. “It means the world to me.”

It meant the world to his brother, Jon, a junior guard for the Colonials. They had their share of shining moments, the biggest coming when Jon got a steal for a breakaway midway through the second half. Josh called out that he was trailing the play, so Jon pulled up at the arc and waited for his brother to pass on his left. Then Jon fed Josh for a 3 and a 14-point lead.

Jon Williams couldn’t stop smiling after watching his brother snip off a loop of the net, then swinging it like a lasso from atop the ladder under the basket. Josh wore the net around his neck as if it were a prized piece of jewelry.

“He’s a champion,” Jon Williams said. “I’m biased toward him. He’s special. You get to see him for 40 minutes. … You don’t see the special things that he does, the sacrifices he makes as a leader. Josh is a special guy. He’s been special all his life. To finally get that championship and finally enter March Madness after he came up short a couple times. Finally, we get to dance.”

This is a dance Josh Williams will remember forever, down to the bottom of his soul.