Box Score Feb. 21, 2009
Final Stats |
Photo Gallery 
Bronx, N.Y. - For the past three years, the Fordham University men's basketball program did a good job defending Rhode Island's Jimmy Baron. Entering the 2008-09 season, Baron averaged 8.0 ppg against Fordham while shooting under 30% from long distance. But it's hard to keep a good shooter down as Baron exploded for 29 points to lead Rhode Island to a 77-58 Atlantic 10 win over Fordham in the Rose Hill Gym.
With the loss, Fordham falls to 3-21 overall, 1-11 in the Atlantic 10, while Rhode Island improves to 20-8 overall, 9-4 in the conference.
Baron's day overshadowed the play of Fordham's Mike Moore, who scored a career-high 28 points, and Jio Fontan, who had another solid all-around game, netting 19 points and adding eight assists.
"We tried some different defenses to stop Baron but when we started turning the ball over on offense they scored some easy baskets and then Baron got hot," said Fordham head coach Dereck Whittenburg. "But I was impressed with Jio Fontan's play, especially with the injury he suffered at Xavier, and I was really pleased with Matt Beck. He never stopped hustling and played hard the whole time he was in there."
Rhode Island scored the first four points of the game before a Fontan basket and a Herb Tanner free throw cut the Fordham deficit back to one, 4-3, just under three minutes into the contest.
A Baron jumper a minute later boosted the Rhode Island lead back to three, 6-3, but a Moore free throw and Luke Devine lay-up knotted the game at six with 14:50 left in the half.
A 10-0 Rhode Island run over the next 2:30 made it a 16-6 game before a Moore four-point play cut the Fordham deficit back to six, 16-10, with 12 minutes remaining in the period.
Rhode Island responded with a 10-2 run, led by four points from Kahiem Seawright, to take a 14-point lead, 26-12, following a Seawright jumper with 8:25 left.
A Fontan three-pointer and a Devine layup over the next two minutes cut the Fordham deficit back to nine, 26-17, but a 13-4 Rhode Island spurt gave Rhode Island its largest lead of the half, 39-21, with 3:44 remaining.
Rhode Island took a 43-27 lead into intermission and bumped it to 19 points, 48-29, on a Stevie Mejia three-pointer 1:30 into the second half.
A Moore three-pointer made it a 16-point game, 48-32, but that was as close as the Rams would get, doing so twice over the final 17 minutes, the final time at 74-58, following a Moore three-pointer with 1:55 remaining.
Moore shot 4-for-9 from behind the arc and added eight rebounds to go with his 28 points.
Fordham will next be in action on Wednesday night, February 25th, as they play host to the University of Richmond Spiders in an Atlantic 10 contest at 7:00 p.m. in the Rose Hill Gym.
Notes
Rhode Island has now won four straight in the all-time series and five of the last six...Rhode Island leads the all-time series, 28-23...Moore's previous career-high was 24 at Xavier on February 14th...He is averaging 18.3 ppg and 8.8 rpg over the past five games...Fontan has scored in double figures in the past 13 games and 17 of the past 18...He is averaging 17.2 ppg over the past 13 games and 7.5 apg over the past two games...When asked how serious Fontan's injury was during the postgame press conference, Whittenburg responded, "for Jio, nothing's serious unless it's broken."...Beck played a career-high 23 minutes and received a standing ovation from the Fordham bench when he came out of the game late in the second half... Jacob Green blocked three shots in the game to bring his team-leading total to 30 in 16 games...All ten players who dressed for Fordham played in the game.
