RMU Basketball: Kahliel Spear career week has Colonials in Horizon contention

In a week against the best players in the conference, RMU Basketball star Kahliel Spear stood out, putting the team back at .500 in the Horizon League standings.

RMU Basketball looked as if they were making progress in its goal of being competitive in the Horizon League. But a four-game road trip went awry, losing the first three games and needing a big second half to get past Green Bay to get to 4-6 in the conference standings, good for 9th overall.

Considering that Green Bay and IUPUI are two of the worst teams in the country, it’s not a great spot to be the worst of the nine other teams in the Horizon League. But with a four-game homestand, the Colonials have the opportunity to make up some ground. Yet it started out with two dangerous opponents in Detroit Mercy and Oakland, who already have wins over Robert Morris.

Detroit Mercy was the first opponent, who has the nation’s leading scorer in Antoine Davis. He’s torched RMU Basketball in the past, averaging over 30 ppg when he plays them. And Oakland had Jalen Moore, who not only is one of the leading passers in the country but averages over 17 ppg. They both had good games last week, with Davis going for 29 points on 9/11 from deep, while Moore had 24 points and four assists.

Yet the Colonials have a pair of stars of their own in Enoch Cheeks and Kahliel Spear. Cheeks, who has led the team in scoring overall, combined for just 17 points in the two games but did have 11 assists and spent a lot of time defending the two quality guards. But the senior forward was able to score enough for the both of them.

Against Detroit Mercy in the 85-77 victory, Spear went for 25 points on 10/14 shooting. In a high-scoring battle that included a lot of 3s on both sides, his being so efficient without even needing the ball much was huge for the team. And he did even better versus Oakland, scoring a career-high 30 points and 11 rebounds in the 68-63 win. Spear was the lone double-digit scorer in a game where offense was hard to find and his defensive work on Trey Townsend, who had 30 against RMU in the first go-around, was highly impressive.

Spear is the 27th player in program history to score 1,000 points in his career and has become the leader in many ways for the team. And with this 2-0 week, the Colonials are 6-6 in the Horizon League and already have the most wins in its short history with the conference with eight games to go. They’re tied with three other teams in the middle of the conference but with a favorable schedule, it’s not impossible to get to the top-5 of the standings and get a bye in the first round of the conference tournament.

Northern Kentucky and Wright State are up next this week, which RMU spilt with on the road to start league play. They’ve already proven they can compete with them before and with Spear playing at an all-conference level, don’t be surprised if another 2-0 week is in the cards for this program.