Men’s Basketball Comes Up Short at Richmond

Richmond, Va. (February 11, 2015) - Edgar Allan Poe, who spent part of his life in Richmond and part in the Bronx where he befriended some Jesuits at Fordham once said, "Never to suffer would never to have been blessed." That saying is some comfort to the Fordham men's basketball team tonight as they suffered a heart-breaking Atlantic 10 loss to the University of Richmond, 73-71, in the Robins Center when a potential game-tying Mandell Thomas jumper hit the front of the rim and bounced away at the buzzer.
 
With the loss, Fordham falls to 6-16 overall, 1-10 in the Atlantic 10, while Richmond improves to 13-11 overall, 6-5 in the conference.
 
The loss overshadowed solid games from the Fordham freshman duo of Eric Paschall and Christian Sengfelder. Paschall led all scorers in the game with 24 points, and he added eight rebounds, while Sengfelder, the reigning Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Week, notched his second double-double of the year with 12 points and ten rebounds. Thomas also finished in double figures for the Rams with 17 while Ryan Rhoomes grabbed a game-high 12 rebounds.
 

The final minute of the game provided plenty of drama as Thomas made it a one-point game in favor of Richmond, 66-65, with a jumper at the 1:00 mark. A ShawnDre Jones three-pointer with 31 seconds on the clock boosted the Spiders' lead to four, 69-65, and, following a Fordham turnover, Jones hit one of two free throws to make it a 70-65 game with 22 seconds left.
 
Paschall launched a three-pointer with 13 seconds remaining that bounced up and through the net to cut the Fordham deficit to two, 70-68, before Terry Allen hit one of two free throws two seconds later to give Richmond a 71-68 advantage.
 
The Spiders then fouled Thomas before he could get off a shot and Thomas buried both charity shots to pull Fordham within one, 71-70, with five ticks remaining on the clock. The Rams then fouled Allen on the inbounds pass and he sank both free throws with four second left to make it a 73-70 game.
 
Antwoine Anderson dribbled the ball across midcourt and was fouled with two second remaining. Anderson knocked down the first free throw and then intentionally missed the second off the front of the rim, Fordham's lone missed free throw on the night. The rebound came to Thomas who was streaking in from the right side and he got off a 12-footer at the buzzer that hit the front iron and bounced away.
 
Fordham jumped out to a 7-0 lead three minutes into the game, with five of those points from Paschall, before Richmond scored the next six points to make it a one-point game, 7-6, with 15:47 left in the first.
 
Layups from Sengfelder and Rhoomes over the next two minutes gave Fordham an 11-6 lead but Richmond answered with five unanswered points to tie the game at eleven with 12:22 on the clock, the first of five ties in the half.
 
The Spiders took a five-point lead, 24-19, with 4:56 remaining but the Rams closed out the half with a 10-4 run to take a 29-28 lead at the break.
 
Fordham opened the second half with a Bryan Smith dunk and a Thomas layup to take a 33-28 lead 1:21 into the half but Richmond came back to tie the game at 37 four minutes later.
 
The Rams led by one, 40-39, with 14:10 left when a Thomas three started an 8-0 Fordham run as the Rams took their biggest lead of the night, 48-39, following a Paschall three-point play with 12:49 on the clock.
 
Fordham led by nine again 29 seconds later, 50-41, but Richmond used a 10-2 spurt to make it a one-point game, 52-51, at the 9:11 mark. Seven straight Fordham points bumped the Rams' advantage to eight, 59-51, with just over six minutes remaining but the Spiders answered with a 10-2 run over the next 2:30 to knot the game at 61.
 
The Rams return to action on Sunday, February 15, as they host the Saint Joseph's University Hawks for an Atlantic 10 contest in the historic Rose Hill Gym at 2:30 p.m. in a game that will be televised on the NBC Sports Network.
 
Notes
Paschall recorded his second straight 20-point game and his sixth of the year… He is averaging 19.4 ppg in Atlantic 10 play… Sengfelder is averaging 13.3 ppg and 10.8 rpg over the past four games…  Rhoomes recorded his seventh double-digit rebounding game of the year and the 16^th in his career… Thomas had one steal to bring his team-leading total to 49… He has at least one steal in all but two games this year… Fordham is shooting 82.9 percent (68-82) from the free throw line over the past three games… The Rams surpassed the 70-point mark for the fourth straight game and are now averaging 75.8 ppg over that stretch… The game featured the team with the highest percentage of freshman scoring (Fordham who gets over 57% of its scoring from freshman) and the team with the lowest (Richmond gets less than 1% of its scoring from freshmen)… The Rams got 37 points from freshmen tonight while the Spiders failed to get any scoring from its two freshmen… Richmond places a live spider in front of the scorer's table during pregame warmup (in a sealed clear box, of course).