Box Score
Amherst, Mass. (January 26, 2014) – If there's one positive for Fordham head coach
Tom Pecora to take away from today's game at Massachusetts it's the fact that Chaz Williams is a senior and this will be the final regular season game that the Rams will have to face the Minuteman guard, who played his first season of college basketball for Pecora at Hofstra. Today Williams scored 18 points and added eight assists to lead #13/12 Massachusetts to a 90-52 win over Fordham in an Atlantic 10 game in the Mullins Center.
With the loss, Fordham falls to 8-11 overall, 1-5 in the Atlantic 10, while Massachusetts improves to 17-2 overall, 4-1 in the conference.
It looks like the Rams caught the Minutemen at the wrong time as UMass was coming off just its second loss of the season, a setback at Richmond on Wednesday, and the Minutemen were playing their lone home game over a six-game stretch in front of a sold out arena.
At first it appeared the Minutemen were fooled by the early start time (noon) because the Rams came out with the initial energy, scoring the first seven points to jump out to a 7-0 lead.
Jon Severe got the Rams on the board with a three-pointer 43 seconds into the game and a
Chris Whitehead steal and old-fashioned three-point play made it 6-0 with 17:44 left in the half.
Ryan Rhoomes hit one of two free throws 35 seconds later to give the visitors the 7-0 lead.
But that fast Fordham start awakened the Minutemen, who went on a 20-2 run over the next six minutes to take a 20-9 lead following a Maxie Esho layup.
A
Branden Frazier three with 10:34 left in the half pulled the Rams to within eight, 20-12, but a 10-2 spurt helped UMass double its lead to 16, 30-14, four minutes later.
After the two teams traded baskets, jumpers from Whitehead and
Bryan Smith got the Fordham deficit to 12, 32-20, with 4:03 left. But the Minutemen outscored the Rams, 8-4, over the final four minutes of the half to take a 40-24 lead at the break.
Massachusetts put the game away by opening the second half with 17 unanswered points to take a commanding 57-24 lead 4:32 into the half.
Whitehead led the Rams with 13 points and six rebounds, both season-highs, while Frazier finished with 12 points and four assists.
The Rams return to action on Wednesday night, January 29, as they travel to Richmond, Virginia, to face the VCU Rams in an Atlantic 10 matchup at 7:00 p.m.
Notes
Frazier's 12 points brings his career total to 1,415, 12
th on the Fordham all-time scoring list… Frazier's four assists give him 444 over the past four years, moving him ahead of Bevon Robin (1997-2001) and into third place on the school's career assists list… Whitehead's previous season highs were nine points (against George Mason on Wednesday) and five rebounds (versus Richmond)… The Fordham coaching staff wore sneakers in place of dress shoes at the game as part of the Suite and Sneakers ™ Awareness Weekend, a collaborative initiative between the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) and the America Cancer Society… The Minutemen hit 13 three-pointers in the game, the most for a Fordham opponent this year (the previous high was 12 by Monmouth in December)… The Mullins Center was the site of Fordham's first ever Atlantic 10 road win, a 66-60 victory in 1999… Former Ram John Pugh, who was a member of that team, was at today's game… The sellout crowd of 9,493 was the 61
st sellout in Mullins Center history and was the third largest crowd to watch a Fordham game this year.
