Kevin Gorman: With NCAA tourney in balance, Robert Morris has edge in coach Andy Toole

Robert Morris has a built-in advantage to win the Northeast Conference championship game, and it has less to do with home-court advantage than it does who is on the sideline.

Colonials coach Andy Toole has Robert Morris a win away from clinching a berth in the NCAA Tournament, an event he has experienced as a player, assistant and head coach.

“It’s indescribable,” Toole said. “It’s a lifetime memory that you want to have everybody to experience.”

Toole, 39, played in back-to-back NCAA Tournaments as a point guard at Penn in 2002 and ’03. He coached in back-to-back NCAA tourneys as a Robert Morris assistant to Mike Rice in ’09 and ’10, when it nearly stunned Villanova. And Toole guided the Colonials there as head coach in 2015, losing to Duke in the first round.

Toole and Robert Morris (19-14) can clinch another NCAA Tournament berth by beating St. Francis (Pa.) (22-9) in the NEC final at 7 p.m. Tuesday at UPMC Events Center.

“That was a huge goal of this program when I came here as an assistant coach 13 years ago, to get back to the NCAA Tournament,” Toole said. “We’ve been fortunate enough to do it on a couple of occasions. We hope to be able to go back, mostly because we want these guys who work so hard every day to have that same kind of experience and take that memory with them for the rest of their lives.”

Robert Morris should count its blessings it has had Toole for so long. Most low-major Division-I coaches use an NCAA berth as a steppingstone to a bigger and better job. That’s what Rice did in 2010, when he left for Rutgers. That’s what happened at St. Francis, too. After Jim Baron led the Red Flash to the NCAA tourney in 1991, he returned to his alma mater, St. Bonaventure, the following season.

Robert Morris hasn’t qualified for the NCAA Tournament since 2015, so the Colonials don’t have any players who have been to the Big Dance. Only Toole and director of basketball operations Jimmy Langhurst, a guard on the Robert Morris ’09 and ’10 tourney teams, understand what’s at stake in this game.

The Colonials realize they have an edge in Toole, who is preaching for Robert Morris to continue to follow a formula: Practice hard in preparation and play connected as can be and as committed to do whatever it takes to win.

“I think that’s a great asset to have,” said Robert Morris junior guard Jon Williams of Toole. “He has the experience, obviously. Just listening to him, paying attention to what he says. Obviously, he knows what he’s talking about if he’s been there, right? We just need to lock in on what he says.”

There’s two things to lock in on what Toole says.

First, he knows when to speak up. Toole has talked to his team about training every day, through the ups and downs, to prepare for a moment like this. Now, he wants the Colonials to rely on that training and live in the moment.

“You don’t have to do something new and different or incredibly spectacular,” Toole said. “You have to do what you’ve done to get yourself here. Getting into that head space isn’t always easy, but we’ll certainly discuss it.”

Plus, Toole isn’t afraid to speak out. After an announced crowd of 1,342 watched Robert Morris beat Long Island in the NEC semifinal at the new 4,000-seat on-campus arena, Toole cracked the Colonials “have a lot of room on the bandwagon.”

When Robert Morris built its new arena to replace the Sewall Center — the court where the Colonials stunned Kentucky in the 2013 NIT — it was with the intention of capturing and creating that type of game-day experience with a raucous on-campus atmosphere.

“I don’t need anyone to come see the coaches, right?” Toole said. “It’s about the players, and it’s about them being out on the floor and having the experience that we want them to be able to have. Sometimes, that energy and that enthusiasm from a home crowd is part of the memories you take from your experience as a Division-I athlete.”

Sometimes, an NCAA tourney berth is part of those memories. Toole is looking to lead Robert Morris to a night it will never forget. There’s room on the bandwagon. It’s time to hop on.