Robert Morris basketball opens their season Nov. 11 against Penn. Over the course of the next month, we’ll post about the things we’re most excited about leading up to the season:

1. The Andy Toole revenge year

Last year probably couldn’t have been more frustrating for Andy Toole.

The 36-year-old might have added a few grey hairs to his repertoire. He had to endure the worst season of his head coaching career (the Colonials went 10-22) and watched more players leave the program for personal or disciplinary reasons.

Robert Morris never finished with less than 18 wins in the Toole era until last year. They lost in the first round of the NEC tournament.

If there’s one guy who’s going to have a chip on his shoulder, it’ll be him.

I’m sure he’s heard all the criticism… “Can’t keep players”, “Too strict”, “Not a lot of out of conference success”… So be it. But Toole, his 120 career wins and five postseason wins (including a NCAA appearance) speaks for itself.

Only six of the 14 players currently on the Robert Morris roster are juniors or seniors. Only four of those six upperclassmen have ever appeared in a game for RMU (Billy Giles, Aaron Tate, Conrad Stephens and Kavon Stewart). This is going to be an extremely young team. Toole will have a chance to mold a lot of these guys into his style of basketball players.

RMU enters the season with a clean slate. Everyone should have a chip on their shoulder for how last year went down.

I know the man leading the charge definitely will.

–Chris Cappella
–@C_Cappella