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Brooklyn, N.Y. (March 13, 2014) – Trailing by 22 late in the first half hours after an emotional win the night before, it would have been easy for the Fordham men's basketball team to fold. But the Rams refused to give up, getting the deficit down to five in the second half before succumbing to the University of Dayton, 87-74, in a first round game of the 2014 Atlantic 10 Championship at the Barclays Center.
With the loss, the 13
th-seeded Rams close out the season with a 10-21 record while the fifth-seeded Flyers go to 23-7 and will play the fourth-seeded Saint Joseph's University Hawks on Friday.
The Rams were led by senior guard
Branden Frazier, who scored a game-high 30 points in his collegiate finale, his fourth 30-point game of the year, hitting four three-pointers while also grabbing five rebounds. The 30 points brings the Brooklyn natives' career scoring total to 1,642, good for ninth on the Fordham career scoring list while he also closes out his career with 495 assists, second all-time in school history, and with 186 career three-pointers, sixth on the Fordham career list.
Dayton couldn't seem to miss in the first half, shooting 63.0% from the field and 61.5% from behind the arc over the first 20 minutes and led 22, 49-27, following a Vee Sanford jumper with 1:11 left in the half before the Rams managed to get the deficit to 19 at the break, 50-31.
The Rams, who shot just 27.3% from the field in the first half, opened the second half with better luck, using three-pointers from Frazier,
Bryan Smith and
Mandell Thomas over the first three minutes to make it an eleven-point game, 51-40.
The Flyers responded with four straight points to get the lead to 15, 55-40, with 16:11 left. But Fordham answered with eight unanswered points to make it a seven-point game, 55-48, on a
Ryan Rhoomes three-point play with 14:30 on the clock.
A Sanford three 28 seconds later bumped the Dayton advantage back to ten before a
Jon Severe three-point play and a Smith trifecta were sandwiched around a Flyer basket to cut the Fordham deficit to six, 60-54, at the 12:58 mark.
Sanford got the Dayton lead to eight with a jumper ten seconds later but a Frazier three pulled the Rams within five, 62-57, with 12:27 left.
The Rams would trail by five twice more over the next 1:30 and were down by six, 71-65 after a Rhoomes jumper with 8:26 remaining but six straight Dayton points got the Flyers lead to 12, 79-67, with four minutes left and the closest the Rams would get from that point would be nine, 83-74, following a Smith three-pointer with 40 seconds left.
Smith and Severe each finished with 15 points for the Rams while Rhoomes added seven points and six rebounds and
Ryan Canty grabbed a team-high ten rebounds.
Notes
Fordham is now 5-14 all-time at the Atlantic 10 Championships…
Branden Frazier entered the game as one of eight NCAA Div. I player to average better than 17.0 ppg, 5.0 rpg and 4.0 apg…
Jon Severe added to his freshman scoring record at Fordham with his 15 points, finishing the year with 536, breaking
Chris Gaston's record of 504 set in 2009-10… Frazier played 38 or more minutes for the 17
th time this year (he played all 40 minutes eleven times and 41 minutes in an OT game vs. Richmond)… Fordham has three players from Brooklyn (
Branden Frazier,
Jon Severe and
Bryan Smith), the most of any Atlantic 10 school and they combined for 60 of the 74 Fordham points (Frazier-30, Severe-15, Smith-15)…
Ryan Canty's two game average of 14.5 rpg is third best in Atlantic 10 Championship history (ties him with Darryl Prue of West Virginia who did it in 1988)… The 50 first half points scored by Dayton were the third most by an opponent this year (George Washington had 56 on Feb. 8 and St. John's scored 52 on Dec. 7)… Fordham is now 2-1 all-time in the Barclays Center… The 74 points scored by the Rams are the most scored by a Fordham team at the Atlantic 10 Championships.
