Robert Morris will be Fine Without Abraham
Usually unexpectedly losing your leading scorer throws your entire team out of whack. That should not be the case for Robert Morris. Surely the Colonials would be better off with the services of guard Karon Abraham, but they have played without him before and have more than enough weapons on the perimeter to make up for his loss.
In May the university suspended the sophomore for the entire 2011-2012 season due to a violation of athletic department policy. He missed four games early in the 2010-2011 season for a violation of team rules and sat out the last five games with an injury. How RMU responded after the loss of Abraham at the end of last season should be a good indication of how they can get over his loss this year. The Colonials won four of the five games Abraham missed entirely. The only game they lost was against Long Island with a trip to the NCAA Tournament bid on the line. And they only lost that game by three points on the road to a team that pretty much dominated the Northeast Conference.
The difference maker was Velton Jones. As just a sophomore, Jones took over the scoring left behind by Abraham. Some of his best games came during Abraham’s absence, including a 29 point effort against Wagner and a 20 point effort in the loss to LIU. Jones is more than ready to take over the leadership role for RMU when it comes to scoring. He may not be the shooter that Abraham is, but he is a better all-around scorer.
In the meantime, the shooting can be left to Coron Williams. Williams had a superb freshman campaign and five of his nine double digit scoring efforts came when Abraham was limited by injury or out completely. He was playing his best basketball late in the year and there are not many better shooters out there. On the year Williams connected on an amazing 46.6 percent of his attempts from long range. He may not be able to keep that up, but he has proven that he can be the shooter on this team.
Add a couple newcomers to the mix in Brandon Herman and David Appolon and Robert Morris has plenty of weapons on the perimeter. Herman should be ready to contribute right away and Appolon is a solid all-around player. That gives Coach Andrew Toole a ton of options and they can live without Abraham for a year and still win the Northeast Conference title. The scary thing is that all those players should be back for 2012-2013 and, if Abraham is reinstated, that is one talented backcourt.
Read the in-depth men’s basketball preview for this team
