Men’s Basketball Falls to George Washington

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Bronx, N.Y. (January 22, 2015) – Over 90 years ago a hole was dug on Fordham's Rose Hill campus that would become the Rose Hill Gym. Ninety years after the gym opened, the Rams dug themselves another hole, falling behind George Washington early, and Fordham couldn't recover, falling to the Colonials, 79-59 in an Atlantic 10 contest.
 
With the loss, Fordham falls to 5-12 overall, 0-6 in the Atlantic 10, while George Washington improves to 15-4 overall, 5-1 in the conference.
 
Freshman Eric Paschall paced the Rams with a team-high 17 points, scoring 16 of those in the second half as the Rams attempted to come back, and he added six rebounds while Mandell Thomas finished with 15 points, eight rebounds and five assists.
 
For the second straight game, Fordham found itself down double digits early, trailing George Washington by 16, 18-2, 5:22 into the game.
 

A Jon Severe three-point play staunched the Colonial run but the visitors would get the lead to as many as 22 in the half, 39-17, with 4:42 remaining. The Rams then closed out the half with a 10-2 spurt to cut the halftime deficit to 14, 41-27. Nemanja Zarkovic led the Fordham run with six points while Thomas added four.
 
The Colonials opened the second half much like to the first, scoring the first ten points of the half to extend the lead to 24, 51-27, 3:23 into the half.
 
Trailing by 25, 61-36 with 12:50 remaining, the Rams started cutting into the George Washington advantage, scoring six unanswered points on a Christian Sengfelder three-pointer, a Thomas free throw and a Paschall layup, to get the deficit to 19, 61-42 with 9:36 left.
 
After a pair of John Kopriva free throws bumped the Colonial lead back to 21, 63-42, the Rams went on a 17-8 run to pull within ten, 69-59, following a Paschall three-point play with 4:01 left but that was as close as Fordham would get. Paschall scored 12 of the 17 Ram points in the run.
 
Severe also scored in double figures, netting 12 points for the Rams.
 
Fordham returns to action on Wednesday, January 28, when they host the University of Rhode Island Rams in an Atlantic 10 game in the Rose Hill Gym at 7:00 p.m.
 
Notes
The Rams celebrated the 90^th anniversary with a special pregame ball presentation featuring university president Joseph McShane, S.J., director of athletics Dave Roach, Anne Gregory and Michelle and Ed Colin, Jr., the wife and son of the late Ed Conlin… Gregory and Conlin are the only Fordham players to have their numbers retired…  Tony Reali, host of ESPN's Around the Horn, and Michael Kay, Yankees announcer and ESPN radio host, were in attendance…  Paschall is averaging 18.7 ppg over the past six games, 19.5 ppg over the past four… Thomas also had three steals to bring his team-leading total to 38… Severe's 12 points is a season high, surpassing his previous best of nine, set against VCU… Fordham committed fewer turnovers (nine) than Georg Washington (13) and are now 2-3 when committing fewer turnovers than its opponent… The Colonials have won the past four meetings with the Rams.