Preview: Robert Morris at St. Francis Brooklyn

Robert Morris (13-11, 8-1) at St. Francis Brooklyn (15-9, 6-3)

When: Saturday, February 8 at 2 p.m.

Where: Peter Aquilone Court

KenPom: RMU 171, St. Francis Brooklyn 195

Link: NEC Front Row

Storyline: RMU looks to get back on a win streak against a tough conference foe

Getting to know the Terriers

Thursday’s game on ESPNU at Long Island may have gotten more publicity but make no mistake about it, RMU-St. Francis Brooklyn is a more important game. The Terriers come into this game with an impressive resume of non-conference wins but could really establish themselves as a contender with a home win over Robert Morris, a team they’ve had nice success with in the past.

St. Francis is lead by forward Jalen Cannon. Quite frankly, Cannon is probably a top-5 player in this conference. The junior is averaging 15.9 points and 8.3 rebounds per game while shooting 49.4 percent from the field. Stephan Hawkins and Aaron Tate are going to have their hands full.

Cannon (right) and Wayne Martin form
the NEC's best front court.
(Getty Images)

St. Francis has 11 guys that average over nine minutes a game. Due to some injuries, 11 guys aren’t consistently playing but the point remains: St. Francis is deep and legs are fresh.

Some names to know: guards Ben Mockford and Brent Jones will both play 25+ minutes a game and have complete games. Neither are outstanding shooters, but you certainly can’t leave either open. Freshman Sheldon Hagigal and Wayne Martin have been awesome finds for head coach Glenn Braica. I really like Hunters game: he’s not the biggest but is shooting 50 percent from the field and gets after it on the glass.

St. Francis has had a lot of success because of their defense. While it isn’t playing at the mark it was earlier in the year, the Terriers are 110 in defensive efficiency on KenPom and allow almost nothing at the rim. RMU is going to have to be on from three.

A tough past:

St. Francis Brooklyn is one of the few teams RMU has struggled with. Last year at Peter Aquilone Court, RMU was simply pushed around by a tougher team. While they got their revenge in the last weekend of the regular season, that was a game that still resonates with me. The year before, St. Francis came to the Chuck and dominated the Colonials in their only matchup and even in 2010-2011 the teams split in their two matchups.

Let the Hawk fly, or at least keep him out of foul trouble:

If sophomore forward Stephan Hawkins gets into foul trouble in this matchup, RMU is in big trouble. That is a huge worry because Hawk seems to get into foul trouble virtually every game. He needs to stay disciplined, and keep those arms straight up.

St Francis is going to attack inside with Cannon and Wayne Martin, along with a few other options. They already are a good rebounding team compared to RMU, and taking Hawk out of the game would make the Colonials life that much tougher on the glass. He must stay in the game and give Robert Morris some type of protection at the rim, while collecting a few boards in the process.

Complete control: 

Robert Morris blew an opportunity to really pull away from the rest of the Northeast Conference when they lost to CCSU on their homecout last Saturday, but righted the ship with that win Thursday over LIU. They now have another opportunity to put some major distance between them and the rest of the conference.

One could argue that the Terriers of St Francis actually have the best chance to catch RMU, because they play a fairly easy schedule and still play RMU twice. Bryant, trailing RMU by one game and team closest to RMU in the standings, has already lost to RMU twice and plays a difficult schedule down the stretch.

If Robert Morris finds a way to win this game Saturday, the Colonials would pull three games ahead of St Francis, and would remain at least one game up on Bryant (with the tiebreaker, and easier schedule), and three (if not more) on the rest of the league.

If the Terriers win, the Colonials will likely be tied with Bryant in the standings, and more importantly, the Terriers would trail by only one game with another matchup between the two teams coming up in a few weeks.

Got all that?

Just know this. A win, and Robert Morris is in GREAT SHAPE moving forward. A loss, and that finish against CCSU will start to haunt the Colonials.