March 26, 2013

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HARRISONBURG, VA. - After downing Boston University in the Rose Hill Gym on Saturday, the Fordham Rams will continue their longest postseason run in over three decades when they travel down to Harrisonburg, Va., to take on James Madison in the WNIT Round of 16.

The game will be streamed live for free on jmusports.com.

SERIES HISTORY: Fordham's series history with JMU is far from storied, as the two teams have squared off only once. That one contest came all the way back in the 1981-1982 season. The Rams emerged victorious from that game held at the Southern Connecticut Tournament, as Fordham topped the Dukes 87-80.

While not much history exists between the two programs, the Rams and the Dukes do share one interesting, while rather stretched, connection. The head coach of the Dukes, Kenny Brooks, is a graduate of JMU, class of 1992. A 1987 graduate of Waynesboro High School in Virginia, Brooks was recruited to JMU by 1987 CAA Coach of the Year John Thurston, who would leave after Brooks' freshman year to take the job as head men's basketball coach and athletic director at Wingate University. About 20 years down the road, Thurston, a native of the Bronx, would find himself on the bench at Fordham University, where he served as an assistant coach for two years on the women's basketball staff from 2008-2010.

SCOUTING JMU: After finishing the regular season second in the CAA behind nationally ranked Delaware and suffering a surprising loss in the semifinals of the CAA Tournament, JMU dispatched of North Carolina A&T and NC State in the first two rounds of the WNIT.

Individually, the Dukes feature two prolific scorers in Tarik Hislop and Kirby Burkholder. Hislop, a senior guard from Silver Spring, Md., ranks fourth in the CAA with 16.2 points per game in addition to sporting an assist-to-turnover ratio of nearly two to one. Burkholder, who also leads the team in rebounds with over nine per contest, pours in 14.6 points per game.

As a team, the Dukes turned in the highest offensive output of any CAA school this season with nearly 68 points per contest, while ranking third in scoring defense and first in rebounding.