Dunlap: Driscoll And Toole Tournament Matchup Is Intriguing
One guy is a Pittsburgher.
One guy is an adopted Pittsburgher.
Both guys are tough to beat --- on and off the floor.
It's a real shame for us Pittsburghers that the matchup that will tipoff on Wednesday at 6:40 p.m. in the NCAA Tournament has to pit Robert Morris and North Florida against each other.
Sure it will serve as a great sense of civic pride as Robert Morris, coached by adopted son Andrew Toole, will take on UNF, coached by Bellevue native Matthew Driscoll, but there is also another way to look at all of this.
One of these guys will get their NCAA dream crushed, in a one-and-done display, by the other guy.
That's the part of all of this that sucks.
That's the part I don't like. That's the reality --- for one of these two guys I know --- that will be tough.
The NCAA, when it puts matchups together in the tournament, has to be aware of sexy storylines and ones that will move the television meter and force people to tune in. You will never convince me otherwise that Driscoll being from here and once being a finalist for the Robert Morris job didn't play a part in this matchup.
At the timeslot the game is played, it is the lone game on and played between an Atlantic-Sun school and Northeast Conference school, thus, anything that can be done to spice it up had to be done.
And the NCAA did as much.
Count the times the broadcasters will hammer home that Driscoll is coaching against a hometown team.
Count the times the broadcasters mention he once interviewed at RMU.
I don't blame the NCAA for interlocking two schools with an easy storyline or the networks for grabbing that bait, but there's a different prism from which to see it --- one of the local guys will get bounced before the proper tournament even begins.
And it's no fun for us here in Western Pennsylvania because we understand the merits of both stories.
Toole is the 34-year-old Robert Morris coach (The Penn grad looks no older than 22) in his fifth season after taking over for his former boss, Mike Rice. Earlier this season, during a rough patch for the Colonials, Toole publicly lit into his team in a postgame press conference.
He spoke of inconsistency.
He spoke of an attitude of arrogance.
He spoke of how his squad, not living in the now, failed to understand just how special it was to be Division I basketball players and they were --- to a man, pretty much --- not grasping the importance and fleeting nature of each game day.
Flatly, Toole called his guys out. Such a tactic can backfire and turn your squad against you, but it can also have the inverse outcome and, through embarrassment, force an atmospheric change.
Toole's message did the latter and it was the embodiment of picking the perfect time to take his heaviest shot at his guys.
Meanwhile, Driscoll is the embodiment of Pittsburgh perseverance --- which is just as easy to root for. He was looked over for the Robert Morris and St. Francis (Pa.) jobs in the past after successful stints as an assistant at Wyoming, Clemson, Valparaiso and Baylor and serving for a few seasons as head coach at LaRoche.
Unperturbed, the man who claims he was taught important people skills by working a job at McDonalds and watching his father rise early to deliver bread for Town Talk, kept pressing forward. He realized his dream of becoming a Division I coach by being hired at North Florida in 2009.
A Pittsburgher and an adopted Pittsburgher, each with an amazing tale of how they came to their place in college basketball, will square off against each other on Wednesday night.
In some ways it is a great celebration of our community pride.
In some other ways, though, I think I'd rather see them not have to play one another.
Colin Dunlap is a featured columnist at CBSPittsburgh.com. He can also be heard weekdays from 5:40 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Sports Radio 93-7 "The Fan." You can e-mail him at colin.dunlap@cbsradio.com. Check out his bio here.
