Men’s Basketball Knocks Off Howard, 74-59

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Bronx, N.Y. (December 28, 2014) – For the first ten games of the year, Fordham men's basketball head coach Tom Pecora was looking for his upperclassmen to step up and provide leadership to a young Ram team. Today that happened as juniors Mandell Thomas (17 points, seven assists) and Ryan Rhoomes (11 points, nine rebounds) led the way as Fordham defeated Howard, 74-59, in the Rose Hill Gym.
 
With the win, Fordham improves to 4-6 while Howard falls to 7-8.
 
The success of the two juniors rubbed off on two Fordham freshmen as Christian Sengfelder and Eric Paschall also finished in double figures and redshirt freshman Antwoine Anderson dished out a career-high nine assists. Sengfelder led all Ram scorers with 19 points, shooting 8-14 from the field ,and he grabbed eight rebounds while Paschall finished with 15 points and six rebounds.
 
The game was a story of two halves for Fordham, who shot 42.3% (11-26) in the first half while committing nine turnovers but rebounded in the second half to shoot 65.4% (17-26) and only turn the ball over five times. Fordham also did a better job from the free throw line than in the past few games, hitting 12 of its 13 charity shoots.
 

The Rams led by two at the break, 28-26, and led by two 1:39 into the second half, 30-28, before a Sengfelder took over, scoring eight of ten Fordham points in a 10-2 run as the Rams took a 40-30 lead following a Sengfelder three-pointer 4:22 into the half.
 
The Bison cut the Fordham advantage to eight three times over the next two minutes, the final at 44-36 with 13:22 left but Fordham went on an 11-2 run to take a 17-point lead, 55-38, on a Thomas steal and dunk with 10:39 remaining.
 
The Fordham lead remained in double figures, eventually getting to as many as 20, 72-52, on a Thomas three with just under two minutes left.
 
The game started slowly for both team as the game was tied at two at the first media timeout and the Rams led by one, 9-8, 6:30 into the game. The Rams then ran off seven straight points, capped by a Nemanja Zarkovic three-pointer with 10:51 left in the half, to take a 16-8 lead.
 
Howard carved away at the Fordham lead, eventually tying the game at 20 on a Marcel Boyd layup with 5:28 on the clock.
 
The game would be tied twice more over the next three minutes, the final at 26, before a Paschall windmill dunk with 39 seconds on the clock gave the Rams a 28-26 halftime lead.
 
The Rams return to action on Wednesday, December 31, as they host the South Carolina State University Bulldogs in the Rose Hill Gym at 12:00 p.m. in a game that will be televised live on SportsNet NY (SNY).
 
Notes
Anderson's previous career-high for assists was six, set against Monmouth and tied versus Manhattan… Anderson now has 34 assists over the past six games… Thomas has scored in double figures in nine of the first ten games, including the past seven straight… Thomas tied his career-high with seven assists, first set at Syracuse in 2013… Thomas also had three steals and now has 14 in the past four games… The Rams outrebounded the Bison, 37-24, and have now outrebounded their opponents in eight of the ten games this year… Fordham set a season-high for field goals (28, previous high was 27 against NY Tech) and tied its season-high for assists with 22 (originally set against NY Tech in the opener)… The Rams have now won both meetings with the Bison.