Fordham has relied on Chris Gaston and Brenton Butler all season to provide scoring, and on Saturday at the Rose Hill Gym, the Rams’ worst nightmare occured: off days for both Gaston and Butler. The result was a 78-53 loss to George Washington in a game where the two combined for just 18 points. Entering Saturday’s game, Gaston and Butler had averaged 34 combined points per game. The two shot a collective 3-for-23 from the field in the loss to the Colonials.

“Chris and Brenton struggled today,” head coach Jared Grasso said, reported by fordhamsports.com. “This team is not going to win many games if those guys don’t score.”

The Rams are now 2-21 overall, 0-11 in the Atlantic 10. Alberto Estwick led Fordham with 12 points while Herb Tanner scored 10 points.

It was Fordham’s third game in seven days, and now the Rams will travel to Richmond Wednesday night and Rhode Island on Saturday. Five games remain on the schedule for Fordham.

“When you’re young it’s harder to adjust and fight through adversity,” Grasso said, though the head coach refused to make excuses for his team. ”We just got back from a long road trip to St. Bonaventure, but that’s not an excuse. Good teams find a way to fight through those things.”

Charles Costello

For the second straight week, and the fourth time this season, freshman forward Chris Gaston was named Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Week.

Last week, Gaston averaged 27.5 points, 10.5 rebounds, and four assists in losses to Xavier and Charlotte. Gaston recorded his 13th double-double of the season (second most in the A-10, tied for eighth in the NCAA) in Saturday’s home loss to Charlotte. Gaston is third in the Atlantic 10 in scoring and second in rebounding.

“He’s the best freshman in the league,” Fordham head coach Jared Grasso said. “To me, he’s got to be the rookie of the league just based on his production. Today (last Saturday versus Charlotte), he put us on his back. There’s not too many freshman who can do that. He had a stretch where not only was he the best freshman in the league, he was the best player in the league; he was a top player in the country. Guys don’t do that. [When] we throw the ball to him we think we’re getting a basket. That’s a special ability. Not many guys [have that] and he has it right now. With a summer to get stronger and shoot the ball a little better, his future is really bright.”

Charles Costello

Jared Grasso talks things over with captain Brenton Butler. (fordhamsports.com)

BY CHARLES COSTELLO

Jared Grasso picked up his first win as a college head coach back on December 8th when Fordham beat Stony Brook, 93-77, at the Rose Hill Gym. Since then, the Rams have dropped 14 in a row, and Grasso’s record as a head coach stands at 1-15 heading into tomorrow night’s contest at St. Bonaventure.

But since December 3rd, when Grasso was named interim head coach, replacing Dereck Whittenburg who had been fired that day, a renewed sense of energy and optimism has been evident. Despite some lopsided losses – Xavier immediately comes to mind – and putting aside the Rams’ struggles in the second half of many of this season’s games, Fordham has been competitive under Grasso, nearly pulling off upsets at Massachusetts, and in recent games versus La Salle and Charlotte. In fact, any win by the Rams would be an upset when you consider the team’s 2-19 record (0-9 in the Atlantic 10), and when you consider the fact that Fordham’s freshmen log more minutes than freshmen from any other team in college basketball. Fordham fans have heard it before, but it may never have been more true. This is a rebuilding program, the definition of a work in progress. 

“This team is growing,” Grasso said about his young squad. “I’ve said it from day one: This group, when we add some pieces, is going to end up being very good. I know how hard these guys work and I know how good this freshman class is. We’re going to end up getting a couple wins here, and we’re going to surprise a lot of people in two or three years when this is a 20-win team.”

Of course, the other storyline is whether the interim tag will be lifted from Grasso’s title. If you ask his players, the media, and a lot of other people familiar with the program, Grasso would be their pick. Having said that, the university has made it clear that it plans on completing an extensive search for a permanent head coach before a decision is made. While he obviously hopes to get the job on a permanent basis, Grasso only allows himself to focus on the present.

“I don’t think about it too much,” he said about what direction the university may decide to go in. “I can’t control it. What I can control is getting our kids to play hard. I can control our effort and our attitude and our energy every day. I can control what I do going recruiting, being on the phone at night with recruits and going to games every night. I do those to the best of my ability. Obviously, I want to be here.”

Who wouldn’t? After all, it’s the desire of most assistant coaches at the college level to one day head their own program. At 29, Grasso is the youngest head coach in Division I college basketball. He’s presiding over a young team, a group of players he believes in.

“This group is going to grow together,” Grasso said. “If they stay together, this group is going to be very good. I hope I’m a part of it. I really like these kids because of the way they bounce back every day. We got hammered at Xavier. We did not play well. They easily could have shown up and packed it in. When you’re losing it’s easy to pack it in. It would be easy for me, too. [But] I’ll never be that way. I’m going to try to outwork people. That’s what I try to instill in our guys. Hopefully, as we move forward, if this is my program, that’s what this program will be built on.”

Chris Gaston had 32 points and 12 rebounds in Saturday's loss to Charlotte. (Photo courtesy of Joe DiBari, Fordham University's Sports Information Director)

BY CHARLES COSTELLO

For most of the afternoon on Saturday, the Rose Hill Gym was at its best. The home team was ahead - on the verge of pulling off a major upset - and the place was alive. That’s how it remained inside the oldest gym in college basketball until the final horn sounded. By that point, however, as players, coaches, and fans left the arena, Fordham had blown a 10-point second half lead, fell to the Charlotte 49ers, 77-72, and dropped to 2-19 on the year, 0-9 in conference play.

Fordham led 30-29 at the half, and avoided a second-half collapse by hitting key baskets and playing solid defense. Despite big shots down the stretch from Chris Gaston and Brenton Butler, it was the defense that got Jared Grasso’s attention.

“I’m huge on scouting,” Fordham’s head coach said. “With a week to prepare I’m pretty confident that we’re going to be able to defend. Right now a lot of the stuff we do defensively is based on scouting. Taking over midyear, it’s hard to put in all the defensive schemes and the way you want to defend. It’s hard to instill that when it’s three days [then] game, three days [then] game. You’re doing everything off scouting. With a week like this to prepare I felt we had everything in place. We knew everything they ran. We were able to put our guys in the right positions.”

Except at the end, when the Rams blew a 10-point lead with 6:59 remaining. The 49ers would go ahead with 2:51 to play, and though Fordham would tie it, the Rams never led again. Charlotte had a 75-72 lead with 16 seconds remaining, and Fordham was unable to convert on a 3-pointer coming out of a timeout.

“We played hard,” Grasso said. ”It’s one of those games where we had them on the ropes. We were right there with the ball down three.”

For Grasso, it’s another step in the right direction for the program. 

“We grew up today,” he said. “We had the best team in the league on the ropes. That’s with five freshman playing major minutes. I’m proud of our guys because of our effort. There’s wins out there for us and we proved we can compete.”

For the Rams, Chris Gaston had 32 points and 12 rebounds, while Brenton Butler scored 15 points. Derrio Green led Charlotte with 24 points, and Shamari Spears had 15 points and 13 rebounds.

Fordham dropped to 2-17 on the year, 0-7 in the Atlantic 10, with an 80-73 loss to La Salle last night at the Rose Hill Gym.

The Rams kept it close right to the end, with a chance to tie the game on an Alberto Estwick 3-pointer with under a minute to play. But Estwick missed that shot and from there the Explorers held on to improve to 11-9, 3-3 in conference play.

From Joe DiBari’s game recap:

The game featured a match-up of two of the top freshmen in the Atlantic 10: Fordham’s Chris Gaston and La Salle’s Aaric Murray. Murray won the scoring battle, 24-21, but Gaston was better on the boards, 15-7, despite being limited to 31 minutes due to foul trouble. The double-double is the second straight and the 12th of the season for Gaston, the second most for an Atlantic 10 player this year.

“Aaric Murray is probably the best player I’ve seen in the Atlantic 10 since I’ve been here,” said Fordham head coach Jared Grasso. “But it came down to us not making our shots while La Salle did.”

La Salle entered the game leading the Atlantic 10 in rebounding margin, outrebounding opponents by an average of 6.2 rpg, but the Rams won the battle of the boards tonight, outrebounding the Explorers, 34-33, thanks to 15 boards from Gaston(21 points). It marked the fifth time in the seven conference games this year that Fordham outrebounded its opponent.

As has been the case for six of the past seven games, the Rams played a solid first half, leading by three at the break, 38-35, but their opponent came out and opened a second half lead before going on to a win.

“I was happy with the way we responded to their run in the second half,” Grasso said. “The guys competed hard all game and were right there at the end. This team is going to be good as long as they keep working hard.”

Read the entire article here.

Charles Costello

The shots didn't fall for Brenton Butler, or the Rams, in Saturday's loss to Temple. (Photo courtesy of Joe DiBari, Fordham University's Sports Information Director)

BY CHARLES COSTELLO

True to form, this one played out like so many others have.

Facing No. 16 Temple (17-3, 5-0) at the Rose Hill Gym Saturday afternoon, Fordham (2-16, 0-6) kept pace with the Owls through the first half, but then things started to slip away in the game’s final twenty minutes as Temple cruised to a 62-45 win over the Rams in front of 2,690 in the Bronx.

Despite shooting just 26.9 percent from the floor in the first half, Fordham trailed by only three, 22-19, heading into intermission, thanks to a 3-pointer at the buzzer by Danny Thompson. Having worked exclusively on defense and rebounding in the two practices leading up to this game, Fordham held Temple to 28 percent shooting in the first half, and matched the Owls in rebounds at 18 apiece (For the game, the Rams outrebounded the Owls, 31-30).

But it wasn’t enough as Temple caught fire in the second half and the Rams fell behind big. At one point, they trailed 54-31 as Temple outscored Fordham, 32 to 12, through the first fourteen minutes and forty seconds of the second half.

“Temple showed why they’re the 16th ranked team in the country and we showed how young we are,” Fordham head coach Jared Grasso said. “The last two days we really talked about defending and competing and we did that. We really defended in the first half. We tried to slow the pace a little bit to turn the game into as much of a grind as possible. The first half was perfect for us. The game was ugly. Neither team could make a shot. That was kind of the way we wanted to play. We wanted it to be a physical game. We wanted it to be a grind. The second half they stepped up and made some shots and we didn’t respond. Our kids never quit. We continued to play hard. But they have more guns than us right now so we need to continue to get better.”

Chris Gaston led the Rams with 16 points and 10 rebounds, his eleventh double-double of the season. Brenton Butler had nine points but shot just 3-of-13 from the floor.

Again, the Rams were unable to find a third scorer, but it may not have mattered as Butler was cold and Temple got hot in the second half.  Juan Fernandez led the Owls with 13 points and Scootie Randall added 12 points. Micheal Eric and Ryan Brooks had nine points apiece as Temple shot 66.7 percent (16-of-24) from the floor in the second half.

“I give a lot of credit to Fordham today,” Temple head coach Fran Dunphy said. “They established the tempo. They knew what they wanted to get accomplished and they did a good job. They made some tough shots when they had to, but we got that separation that gave us a chance to win the game.”

This one wasn’t close.

After battling hard only to come up short in its first four Atlantic 10 contests, Fordham simply didn’t have it Wednesday night, as the Rams fell behind early and often against Saint Louis, dropping to 2-15 on the year with a 75-48 loss to the Billikens.

Saint Louis has the second ranked defense in the league, though their issue has been scoring. Against the Rams, that wasn’t a problem. They jumped ahead early with an 11-2 lead, had a 17-6 lead with 12:39 remaining in the first half, increased the lead to 34-18 thanks to a 10-0 run with 3:53 left, and took a 42-24 lead into halftime.

As if that wasn’t enough, the Billikens outscored Fordham 12-1 to start the second half to take a 54-25 lead. From there, Saint Louis cruised to its 12th win of the year.

Lance Brown led the Rams with 15 points and seven rebounds, while Chris Gaston finished with ten points and eight rebounds.

Charles Costello

Fahro Alihodzic is part of Fordham's youth movement. (Photo courtesy of Joe DiBari, Fordham University's Sports Information Director)

BY CHARLES COSTELLO 

At 29, Jared Grasso is the youngest head coach in Division I college basketball. You may have already known that. But did you know that Fordham’s freshmen have logged more minutes (Grasso says they average approximately 120 out of a possible 200 minutes per game) this year than freshmen at any other program in the country? The result is a total movement toward youth at Rose Hill.

“We have a ways to go and a lot of it has to do with our youth,” Grasso said after Saturday’s loss to Rhode Island dropped the Rams to 2-14, 0-4 in the Atlantic 10. “It’s not going to happen overnight. They’re freshman. They don’t realize how much it takes and how hard they need to play for 40 minutes to win. We’re just going to keep working hard and keep getting better.” 

Fordham is winless in its first four conference games. Each game has seemingly followed the same script: the game is close in the first half, the Rams have the game tied or find themselves ahead in the second half, then suffer through a scoring drought to fall behind, eventually mount a comeback, only to fall short each time.

“I’m not a big moral victory guy,” Grasso said. “I’m proud of our guys because they keep playing hard and working hard. We’re going to eventually be good. Our freshmen play more minutes than any other Division 1 program in the country right now. At some point, when these guys are juniors and seniors, we’re going to be good, and I think it will be sooner than that. We’re going to win some games. I still think we’ll end up being pretty good this year. We just need to grow up tomorrow. I don’t know if they’re going to grow up tomorrow but I have to keep pushing them and we have to keep fighting to get better.” 

Youth aside, it’s clear that Grasso has high expectations, and has set high standards, for his players.

“I’m going to be honest with them about what I think of them,” Grasso said. “When they’re good I’m going to tell them they’re good, and when they’re not I’m going to tell them they’re not. 

Following Saturday’s loss, Fordham’s ninth in a row, Grasso was quick to put his finger on what’s been plaguing his team for some time. 

“The biggest thing is toughness,” he said. “Toughness isn’t beating someone up or hitting someone. Toughness is when you’re pressured being able to make a pass. When the team makes a run being able to get a stop. When things get tough our guys have to find a way to fight through it.” 

The Rams have not yet been able to do that. Grasso is confident that, with time and experience, that will change. For this reason, he’s excited about this group’s potential.

“I like these guys,” Grasso said. “I know we’re going to be good. I promise you [that] at some point we’re going to be good with these young kids. Four years ago Dayton was below .500 and won six A-10 games, La Salle was 10-20 and won four A-10 games, and Richmond was 8-22 and won three A-10 games. Now they’re upperclassmen and those three teams were picked in the top four in the league. There’s a lot to be said [about] having upperclassmen.”

Fordham's Rayner Moquete drives toward the basket during this afternoon's loss to Rhode Island. (Photo courtesy of Joe DiBari, Fordham University's Sports Information Director)

BY CHARLES COSTELLO

One Rams’ team is experienced. The other Rams’ team is not. Though you never know in college basketball, on this Saturday at the Rose Hill Gym, it was the experienced squad from Rhode Island that overcome a feisty Fordham bunch that has now put a scare into its first four Atlantic 10 opponents. However, for the fourth straight conference game, Fordham fell out of sync in the second half, and today, in front of 2,354 in the Bronx, Fordham dropped its ninth straight with a 85-67 loss to Rhode Island.

Though you would never know by the final score, the game was tied at 44-44 after a Chris Gaston layup with 16:54 to go. But Rhode Island (14-2, 2-1) would go on a 32-4 run over the span of about eight and a half minutes to put the game away. Fordham (2-14, 0-4) showed fight the rest of the way, but by that point Rhode Island already had the game wrapped up.

“The first time we struggled with their pressure was during that stretch,” Fordham head coach Jared Grasso said. ”Part of the thing that hurts us in the second half is our defense isn’t in front of our bench any more. I feel more comfortable coaching our defense and putting guys in spots when they’re in front of our bench. I feel like I can give them energy defensively when they’re right there. When we end up down at the other end, I feel like our defensive energy isn’t there.

“It’s hard when we have scoring droughts and teams go on runs, we really need a third scorer to step up,” Grasso continued. ”Chris Gaston and Brenton Butler give everything they have, but we really need a third guy to step up and score. We haven’t found that guy yet.”

The final score overshadows just how close this game was up until the point of Rhode Island’s run. Fordham trailed 40-36 at the break, after a first half filled with lead changes, transition baskets, and solid offensive execution. Fordham was able to break Rhode Island’s pressure in the first half. In fact, Grasso said afterward that his team didn’t turn the ball over once in the first half against Rhode Island’s pressure. The second half was a different story.

“Obviously we were good for about 25 minutes, similar to the Dayton game,” Grasso said. “Our young guys have to get better and have to learn how hard they have to play for 40 minutes in order to win at this level… When we have basketball adversity we’re not good at finding a way to get out of it. We have to get tougher and we have to find a way to fight through adversity.”

Chris Gaston recorded his tenth double-double of the season, scoring a game-high 29 points and grabbing a game-high 16 rebounds. Brenton Butler added 19 points, while Fahro Alihodzic had 10 rebounds. For URI, Keith Cothran scored 26 points and Lamonte Ulmer added 24 points.

“We knew this was going to be a hard-fought game,” Rhode Island head coach Jim Baron said. “I thought it was two different halves. I thought we did a great job sharing the basketball and playing defense in the second half. We knew it wasn’t going to be an easy task. This was a good win for us.”