Freshman Alberto Estwick scored a game-high 17 points in last night's loss at Dayton. (Photo taken by Keith Krebs, courtesy of Joe DiBari)

BY CHARLES COSTELLO

Sometimes after games like Fordham had Wednesday night at Dayton, you get the feeling that it just wasn’t meant to be. Not this soon for the Rams, not on a winter night in 2009 against the second best team in the conference, not when your record is 2-13 and there’s is 15-2.

After battling all night against the Flyers, in front of 11,993 at the University of Dayton Arena, the Rams went ahead by one, 71-70, with 10 seconds left in the game after two successful free throws by freshman Trey Blue. It was Blue’s finest night since the season opener when he scored 24 points and was named the Atlantic 10′s Rookie of the Week. Last night, Blue scored 11 points in 19 minutes, but it’s the crucial free throws everyone will remember.

But what they’ll also remember is Dayton’s Rob Lowery taking the inbounds pass and driving the length of the court for the game winning layup with five seconds left, giving the Flyers a 72-71 win over the Rams. Lowery finished with a team high 13 points and five assists, but his drive to the basket will haunt Fordham for some time. Fordham had one last chance at the end, but the ball was swatted away from Jio Fontan as he crossed midcourt.

“Rob Lowery’s a gem with the basketball and he made a nice play,” Fordham assistant coach Steve Treffiletti said on WFUV after the game. “We came in here and made a (great) run. You add this on top of the run on Sunday, these guys won’t give up, they won’t stop playing. This was a (great) performance and effort from these guys.”

The game appeared out of reach with 30 seconds left and Dayton ahead by six, 69-63. But Jio Fontan was fouled attempting a three-pointer and preceeded to knock down three free throws to pull the Rams to within three. After Dayton’s Stephen Thomas hit one-of-two free throws, Fontan connected on a three-pointer to pull the Rams to within one. After a Dayton turnover, Blue drove to the basket and was fouled, leading to the two free throws that gave Fordham a one point lead.

The Rams led for most of the first half and never trailed by more than 11, not bad when you consider they entered the game 23 point underdogs, with no one giving them much of a chance. When it looked like Dayton was beginning to pull away midway through the second half, taking a 53-42 lead with 12:50 to go, the Rams came back.

Freshman Alberto Estwick led the Rams with 17 points. Fontan had 15 points and eight assists, and Mike Moore added 11 points. Chris Bethel had nine points, while Jacob Green had a team-high seven rebounds.

Dayton’s Chris Wright and London Warren, who were held out of the starting lineup because of the flu, saw limited action. In addition to Lowery’s performance, Marcus Johnson had12 points and seven rebounds, and Charles Little added 11 points. Chris Johnson grabbed a game-high eight rebounds.

Fordham shot 44 percent (11-for-25) from three-point range and 43.9 percent (25-for-57) from the floor, a huge improvement from previous games.

“Your heart goes out to (Fordham coach) Dereck Whittenburg and his team because they outplayed us the whole game – even when were were up by (four) at the end,” Dayton head coach Brian Gregory told the Dayton Daily News. “They deserved the game more than we did.”

Fordham needed a strong defensive effort Sunday against No. 16 Xavier. (Photo taken by Keith Krebs, courtesy of Joe DiBari)

BY CHARLES COSTELLO

Eighteen point underdogs, a nationally ranked team in town, and fans with their eyes on the Rams and their ears to the Giants. That was the Rose Hill Gym Sunday afternoon. That was Fordham versus No. 16 Xavier.

But the host Rams did their best to turn the cold January afternoon into a historic one for the program and its fans, in what would have undoubtedly been the biggest upset win for the Rams since they joined the Atlantic 10 back in 1995. Propelled by a second-half surge that saw Fordham come back from a 45-30 halftime deficit to cut the Xavier lead to one at 49-48, the Rams had a decisive home court advantage. And it came just at the right time. The Muskateers are big, they’re fast, they rebound, and they can shoot. Certainly deserving of their Top 25 ranking. A formidable opponent indeed.

And still, the Rams held their own. Sparked by three 3-pointers by Alberto Estwick (who finished the game with a team-high 20 points) at the start of the second half, two big buckets and a free throw by Jacob Green, and a three-pointer by Mike Moore, the stage was set: 49-48, 15:25 on the clock, Xavier timeout, and the Rose Hill Gym alive with hope and pride for the first time this season.

It was a stretch of nearly five minutes during which the Rams outscored the Muskateers 18-4 to start the second half. But just as quickly as the Rams came back, Xavier regrouped. And that’s to be expected of a team that’s beaten the likes of Memphis, Auburn, Cincinnati, and Virginia. All of the sudden, B.J. Raymond (team-high 18 points) started knocking down three-pointers and C.J. Anderson and a host of other Muskateers showered the Rams with basket after basket. It was a balanced scoring attack all game for Xavier, with six players reaching double figures and the team recording 18 total assists. In all, Xavier rebounded from Fordham’s surge to go on a 23-3 run over an eight minute stretch, outscoring the Rams 37-12 in the game’s final 15:25. An outcome Rams’ fans are becoming all too familiar with this season.

“I wish after 25 minutes we could have just stopped the game and said ‘okay, that’s it, we won,’” Fordham head coach Dereck Whittenburg said. ”They’re (Xavier) a great team. Sean’s (Xavier head coach Sean Miller) done a great job. They have a great, great team and they showed you why. We brought the game back. We were executing just fine. This is the time when we miss a Brenton Butler. This is the time when we need some experience out there, when we need someone who can settle everyone else down. We’re back in the game and now we have to really execute, we need to get a little smarter. And now they showed you why they’re such a good team. Once you make mistakes they capitalize, they make threes, they make layups, and it’s just like a faucet running. You can’t stop it.”

So what was it that shifted the momentum back to the Muskateers once Miller called a timeout after Moore’s three-pointer had the 2,339 in attendance believing for the first time this year? Believing that an upset was within reach. Believing that the real story today wouldn’t be Giants-Eagles, but Rams-Muskateers.

“Sometimes when the game gets in the balance, you get the game down to 49-48, they make a couple baskets, now we have to run some offense,” Whittenburg said. ”We start to do the little things out of character. We took some quick shots. Quick shots lead to good offense on the other side. You make another mistake and you’re down one and now you’re down 10 and you’re trying to fight back. Then if you make another mistake you’re down 15 and you’re trying to hold on. To be honest with you, it was all freshmen out there. Those are the guys who brought us back. If we could have just had a little more help we really would have had an opportunity. As lopsided as it looked, we certainly had our chances within that 15 minute mark if we just kind of kept the game in the balance.”

Meanwhile, Miller complimented his veteran team for the way they responded to Fordham’s run.

“We didn’t panic. We kept our composure,” Miller said. “Our veteran leadership, players that had been there before, really stepped up. There was no time to worry about what had happened. Keep poised, stay with what we’re going to do, and be the better team for the next 14 or 15 minutes. If we had to depend on younger players like Fordham has, tonight would have been a game that would have been difficult for us to win.”

And that they did, shooting 53.8 percent from the floor, and eventually coasting to an 86-60 win.

“All in all a good win for our team,” Miller said. “If there’s such a thing as a 26-point hard fought victory, I thought tonight was one of those for us. I felt like we had to win the game two times.”

The Muskateers used strong shooting (56.5 percent) in the first half to build a 17-point lead. Xavier was 13-for-23 from the floor in the first half, and they knocked down 6-of-9 attempts from three-point land. Conversely, Fordham shot 3-of-16 from three-point range in the first half, after draining just 6-of-26 shots from beyond the arc in Wednesday’s loss to St. Bonaventure. Overall, the Rams were 10-of-32 (31.3 percent) in the opening frame coming on the heels of their 30 percent shooting performance against the Bonnies. Though numbers rarely lie, the shooting was better than it was in the Atlantic 10 opener.

“I got them to shoot a little bit more at practice,” Whittenburg said. ”I changed a couple of things at practice to get them more shots, and I think that’s paying off.”

Remarkably, Fordham turned the ball over just twice in the game’s first 20 minutes, and using a pesky, all-hands-on-deck defense, forced eight Muskateer turnovers in that frame. The rebounding was another story, however, with Xavier outrebounding the Rams 25-11 in the first half (45-29 for the game), though only six points were scored by Xavier on second chance points in the half. And given Xavier’s size, strength, and experience, Fordham did a much better job on the boards than they did Wednesday night when three late offensive rebounds sealed the win for St. Bonaventure.

“I think we did good in spots but we still have to get a total team effort,” Whittenburg said about the emphasis placed on rebounding. ”We did a lot better (rebounding) on the free throw line because we practiced an hour a day on just blocking out on free throws. Now we have to do a little bit better in our zone defense. We have to do a little better in man to man. We’re going to change some lineups. The schemes were pretty good. Now we just have to execute the little things. You’ve got to work on those fundamentals and I think we can get better at it.”

For most of the first half, Fordham made this a game. The Rams trailed just 26-22 with 6:30 to go after a Trey Blue three-pointer. But while Fordham made their run to start the second half, the game quickly got out of hand. The young Rams were unable to keep up with the more experienced Muskateers, and just as quickly as Fordham came back, it all began to unravel.

“When you’re relying on just your younger guys that’s going to happen,” Whittenburg said. ”And I think it’s a positive thing. Now they understand if you execute what we’re trying to do, if you play good defense, rebound, and make some shots, you certainly have a chance against these teams. To be frank with you, we’ve got to get more productivity from the returning guys. We just need more productivity with those guys to step in there during the times when the freshmen have really been doing well. We needed the veteran guys (today) to get back in there and get control of the game, and if we would have done that we would have had an excellent chance.”

Despite dropping to 2-12, Whittenburg saw improvement and continues to talk about the process of learning and getting better as a team.

“We were 25 minutes closer today against a top 15 team,” Whittenburg said. ”If we did that against St. Bonaventure we probably would have won. That’s what they’re learning. We can’t panic. We’re going to try to steal a game on the road and stay with it. I saw some good things today.”

FORDHAM VS. NO. 16 XAVIER

TODAY AT 1:00, ROSE HILL GYM

RADIO BROADCAST ON 90.7FM AND WFUV.ORG BEGINNING AT 12:55

FULL REPORT LATER IN THE DAY ON FORDHAMSPORTSNET.COM

As Fordham prepares for tomorrow afternoon’s game against No. 16 Xavier at the Rose Hill Gym, here are comments from head coach Dereck Whittenburg from today’s interview on WFUV.

On Wednesday’s game against St. Bonaventure, a 78-65 loss:

“We showed some fight and Zach Wing came off the bench and gave us a lift. If we could have gotten two or three more guys that played with the energy he played with, we could have come out victorious. We got the pressure going a little bit. We started to get some easier baskets. If you don’t shoot well you’re not going to win many ballgames and that really hurt us at the end.”

On Fordham’s propensity for falling behind in games:

“Our productivity from the guard’s spot has been inconsistent mainly because of inexperience, but also because Brenton Butler (out since Dec. 8 with an ankle injury) hasn’t been there. He just hasn’t been there as a calming force and as someone with experience. We miss him a lot. We’ve been shorthanded. Sometimes we’ve had three freshmen on the court. We just can’t expect them to do it every time. These guys haven’t really bought into the mentality that I want them to buy into. We don’t have a defensive mentality. That’s something we need to learn as the season goes along.”

On problems rebounding the basketball:

“A lot of this is all effort and you have to stay focused at all times. I think you can tell all our guys get so deflated when things aren’t going well for them. We just didn’t go after the ball and block out (in Wednesday’s loss to St. Bonaventure). Trust me, we’ve been working on that. We’ve been blocking out the last two days at about an hour a clip so I don’t think that’s going to happen again.”

On the Rams shooting 30.8 percent from the floor against St. Bonaventure:

“It’s a matter of guys making shots and getting in there and working on shots. A lot of times we as coaches can take care of it. Our guys have to get more hungry and get more passion about wanting to rectify their shooting. We can do it in practice but [the players] have to put in the extra work. It all comes down to confidence and putting in the work.”

On the 26 three-points shots Fordham took against the Bonnies:

“It’s called impatience. The teams that run the offense and are patient can do whatever they want. We have a young team that doesn’t yet trust what we do. These guys sometimes break away and that’s a part of being young and being inexperienced. We just showed impatience. Sometimes they don’t understand when to be aggressive and when to be patient. That’s all part of inexperience. It’s just a learning process. If they run some offense and believe in it and make some shots it will work well for them.”

On Jacob Green:

“He’s [basically] a freshman, he’s going to be fine. He’s going to be a good player. He’s learning. He’s a transfer but this is his first year playing. He’s still learning. This is the first six or seven games he’s played in college. We’re out there with a lot of inexperience. I just think in time he’ll make some power layups.”

On Trey Blue:

“He’s a  good shooter, but he’s all offense. That’s nice and I know sometimes the ball is going to go in, but what else can you contribute? If you’re a good shooter that’s the last thing you worry about. You focus on the other things. It helps you shoot. If you concentrate on defense I believe the shots will fall in. We just have such a lack of confidence, we worry too much about offense.”

On Zach Wing:

“He is on the team, he has earned the right to play. Other than Jio Fontan he plays the hardest on our team. He gives everything he has on the court and he’s productive. He can defend anybody and he gets in there and battles. He plays harder than the so-called scholarship players. You can count on him. When a guy doesn’t make a shot and then we don’t get the production on defense and rebounding, then you might as well put someone in who you can count on. His energy level brought us back into the game (Wednesday against St. Bonaventure). I just wish we had two or three more guys like Zach Wing because he just gives us so much.

On Lamar Thomas:

He’s developing. He’s a little thin right now. Zach has really given us more productivity. You’ve got four guys in that rotation for two spots, and right now Lamar Thomas is not ready in terms of strength, but I think he’ll be fine when he builds his body up. Sometimes it take big guys a little while to develop.”

On Jio Fontan:

“That’s the last guy I’m worried about on our team. He’s had a little gimpiness in his foot and he hasn’t practiced the last couple of days. Jio Fontan is a good competitor, he’s going to give us 100 percent effort. He’s going to be the best point guard in the Atlantic 10 that we’re going to have here over a four year period.”

On Brenton Butler, out with an injured ankle since Dec. 8:

“When you’ve been out for a month and you haven’t even practiced, until he starts practicing and getting into game shape it looks to me like a week to three weeks (before he returns). You never can tell. We can’t rush that. It’s up to him whether or not he’s up to it.”

On the recruiting front:

“We certainly have a lot of talent with those guys (Lance Brown, Chris Gaston, Brian Freeman) coming in. I’m very confident with the recruiting class coming in. They (St. Bonaventure) had junior college transfers that came in so there are teams that are not going to be as young as we are. Most teams have gone out and sometimes they try to fill holes with junior college players and that’s just not really the way we do things at Fordham. We have to develop our freshmen, and more important you have to get productivity from the returning guys to hold the fort down.

On recruiting going on right now:

“We dont’ know right now (about adding an additional recruit for next year). I can’t really talk too much about it but we’re definitely going to bring in a quality player, the best available player we can get. I think we have a lot of athleticism coming in from the class we have. We’re going to get the kind of team I look forward to having in the future. We could use a big guy but we could also use someone who can shoot or another guard. I believe we have some good pieces. It’s just going to take some time to develop. Once it develops we’re going to be a good basketball team.

On No. 16 Xavier:

“I think he’s (Xavier head coach Sean Miller) done a terrific job, but you have to understand that every coach that’s been at Xavier has had tremendous strength. They had a successful program that’s going to continue to be a successful program. Sean has come in and done a nice job of putting his style in, getting his players in. I think he’s done a terrific job, but Xavier is designed to succeed. It’s got the best arena in our conference, the best facilities in our conference, the biggest budget. We’re going up against a formidable program. To me this game is a good physical game for us. We’re at home, we’ve got nothing to lose. No one thinks we’re going to win except us.”

On tomorrow’s gameplan:

“As talented as they are, they’re really playing as a team. They’re really patient, they run their offence, they just understand what they need to do. They try to keep you out of the paint, but we’re going to have to try to challenge them inside. They’re just a solid basketball team.”

On Fordham’s interior defense:

“We’ve got to protect the paint as well. We have to make sure that everyone gets in there and rebounds. Collectively as a team we have to get in there and rebound and avoid giving them second shots. It’s really going to come down to who’s going to rebound the basketball, who’s going to make shots, and who’s going to be patient.”

Chris Bethel goes up for a shot in Fordham's 78-65 loss to St. Bonaventure Wednesday night at the Rose Hill gym. (Photo courtesy of Joe DiBari, Fordham University's Sports Information Director)

BY CHARLES COSTELLO

With 15:17 on the clock and the Rams and Bonnies tied at 8-8, Fordham’s Jacob Green was all alone in the frontcourt. The 6-9 sophomore simply had to do what he’s done many times before. With no defender in site, a basket and an early lead seemed inevitable. But then Green missed a dunk, St. Bonaventure’s Malcolm Eleby grabbed the rebound, and the Bonnies were off to the races.

And that’s the way things have gone for Fordham this year. Learning the hard way, experiencing the growing pains associated with rebuilding a basketball program.

For now, that means a 2-11 record following Wednesday’s 78-65 loss at the Rose Hill Gym against a much more experienced St. Bonaventure team that capitalized on poor shooting by the Rams in the Atlantic 10 opener for both teams.

“I’m encouraged because it’s the kind of game for us that earlier in the year if we got down by 10 points we kind of folded a little bit,” head coach Dereck Whittenburg said after the game. “We came back, cut the lead, and then there’s three offensive rebounds on free throws. That’s just focus and concentration. They’re learning the hard way but there were some bright spots in the game for us today.”

One bright spot was the full-court pressure the Rams employed late in the game that allowed them to pull within five at 68-63 on a Fontan three-pointer with 1:36 to go. But that all went for nought when St. Bonaventure’s Michael Davenport pulled down three consecutive rebounds off missed free throws in a span of 30 seconds. It was a remarkable display of rebounding by the freshman guard, but also a breakdown in execution and a mental block by the Rams resulting in the Bonnies keeping possession and running more time off the clock.

“It’s just mental, it’s focusing,” Whittenburg said about the rebounding. “And that’s why next practice we’ll spend a significant amount of time blocking out and we’re going to prevent that next time. I think we should be able to do a better job with it but it’s all mental. It’s a very fundamental thing but that’s something we have to continue to focus on.”

Another area that they’ll have to continue to focus on is their shooting. Fordham shot 21.2 percent from the floor in the first half and finished the game at 30.8 percent. The Rams were 6-of-26 (23.1 percent) from three-point range and they shot just 19-of-32 from the free throw line. Despite forcing 19 turnovers, including three late in the game that allowed them to come back from a 15-point deficit to cut the Bonnies lead to five, the Rams could not overcome their poor shooting.

“When you shoot 30 percent from the field you can’t win basketball games,” Whittenburg said. “That’s just not going to cut it especially at this level. We had some good shots. We missed a lot of layups. It’s all about toughness and a little bit of confidence.”

Fordham shot 13 times from beyond the arc in the first half, with only one made basket by Mike Moore. Still, though, Whittenburg said it’s simply a matter of making those shots, not a question of shot selection.

“If it’s a wide open three-point shot you should make it,” he said. “We took some bad three-point shots but some of them were good. The difference is if you take 26 and you get 13 you say we did good. We took a couple that were unadvised but some of the other ones you just have to make them. We didn’t want to take a whole lot of three-point shots but they gave us some where we were wide open. You’ve got to make them.”

Fordham trailed 34-25 at the half with senior Chris Bethel leading the way with nine points and eight rebounds in the game’s first 20 minutes. Jio Fontan scored four points in the half but came back in the second half to end the game with 22 points. His three-pointer with 1:36 to go came during a stretch where the Rams forced turnover after turnover with their full-court pressure. After being down 67-52 with under four minutes to play, the Rams outscored the Bonnies 11-1 during a two minute stretch, a result of the defensive pressure that the Bonnies weren’t prepared for.

“We just didn’t handle that well,” St. Bonaventure head coach Mark Schmidt said about Fordham’s press. “That was probably the first time (this year) we had really been pressed. We showed our inexperience a little bit. We were tentative. They (Fordham) did a good job but we didn’t attack it aggressively.”

Despite Fordham’s 2-11 record, Schmidt was impressed with what he saw from the Rams.

“They’ve got a young team, a talented team, but they’re going to go through some growing pains,” he said. “It’s hard to win with freshmen but they’ve got talent. The future is bright for them.”