Recruiting players to the Robert Morris College basketball program can’t be an easy task for coach Al Bruehl.
The Eagles don’t have a home court and play all of their games at the 500-person capacity Loyola University Alumni Gym, and they practice at Hoops the Gym in Chicago. There are no dorms for the players, and most of the players are from the Chicago area and live at home. And with the 4,975-student enrollment spread out over campuses in Chicago, Aurora, Bensenville, Joliet, Orland Park, Peoria and Springfield, it suffers from a bit of an identity crisis.
In fact, Robert Morris in Chicago is often confused with the school of the same name in Pittsburgh, a struggling Division I program.
But a 34-6 record and a second-place finish at the NAIA Division II national tournament in Missouri last week brought the men’s basketball team some attention. It’s even better publicity than the commercials promoting the school that run on late-night television.
“We try to sell the institution, the program and ourselves as coaches,” said Bruehl, in his fifth year at Robert Morris after coming over from Trinity International in Deerfield.
Many of the top NAIA players come from unhappy situations in bigger programs, some even with Division I experience. In Bobby Smith, the Eagles picked up a transfer this season who instantly turned a 23-win squad into a national power.
Smith started 18 games as a sophomore at Villanova, but left school in March 2000. With his first child, Brittany Bobby Smith, on her way, the 23-year-old, who played at Julian High School and briefly attended Carver High School, felt the need to go home.
For one year, Smith tried to decide if he was going to another Division I program before placing a call to Bruehl and assistant coach Aubrey Volious and finding an immediate fit at Robert Morris. Smith scored 113 points in the final three games of the national tournament, hitting 40 straight free throws at one point. He finished with 37 points in the 84-61 championship loss to Evangel.
“People have looked at Robert Morris in the past as a non-program,” said Smith, whose 27-point average was No. 2 among all college players this season. “But there are a lot of Division I schools who couldn’t beat us.”
Next year the Eagles, who play in the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference,will move up to NAIA Division I.
For now, the players are celebrating their success. On Monday, they joined about 100 students and administrators at a pep rally on the eighth floor of the Chicago campus at State and Van Buren.
It wasn’t exactly a ticker-tape parade, but any recognition is a positive for this rising commuter program.
“In this case, it was OK to finish No. 2,” said senior forward Walter Hamilton, an all-tournament selection from DuSable. “We put Robert Morris College on the map.”
