Men’s Basketball Falls to Duquesne

Photo Gallery (Game Action) | Photo Gallery (Senior Night)

Bronx, N.Y. (March 4, 2015) – With the loss of Eric Paschall to an injury, the Fordham men's basketball squad was looking for someone to step up and fill his role. And for the first 14 minutes things looked good as the Rams built a 12-point lead only to see it vanish as Fordham dropped an 81-66 Atlantic 10 game to Duquesne University in the Rose Hill Gym.
 
With the loss, Fordham falls to 9-19 overall , 4-13 in the Atlantic 10, while Duquesne improves to 11-17 overall, 6-11 in the conference.
 
The loss overshadowed a strong game from senior Bryan Smith, who was making his final appearance in the Rose Hill Gym. He netted a game-high and season-high 17 points and had five rebounds while junior forward Ryan Rhoomes finished with 15 points and 13 rebounds, his fourth double-double of the year Christian Sengfelder and Mandell Thomas also netted double figures for Fordham, with Sengfelder finishing with 15 points and six rebounds and Thomas adding 12 points and five assists.
 

The story of the game was Duquesne's strong shooting from behind the arc, burying ten of its 22 long range attempts, and an opportunistic Dukes' offense, turning 12 Fordham turnovers into 17 points while the Rams could only net two points from ten Duquesne turnovers.
 
Fordham jumped out to a 7-2 lead over the first 2:14 but the Dukes came back with a 12-2 run to take a five-point lead, 14-9, with 14:58 left.
 
Duquesne led by five again two minutes later, 16-11, when a 17-2 Fordham outburst gave the Rams a 29-18 lead on a Rhoomes jumper with 6:04 remaining. Rhoomes netted eight points in the Fordham run.
 
Smith answered a Jeremiah Jones basket with a three-pointer to give Fordham its biggest lead of the night, 32-20, with 5:13 on the clock. But a minute later, Rhoomes picked up his second foul and was forced to the bench and the Dukes took advantage, outscoring the Rams 18-3 over the final five minutes to take a 38-35 lead at the break.
 
The Dukes extended the lead to nine early in the second, 47-38, before a Rhoomes layup pulled the Rams within seven, 47-40, with 14:54 remaining. Unfortunately that was as close as Fordham would get as a Duquesne 11-2 spurt gave the Duke s 58-42 lead midway through the half and the Rams could only get within nine, 66-57, on a Sengfelder layup with 2:39 left.
 
The Rams will close out the regular season on Saturday, March 7, when they travel to St. Bonaventure, N.Y., to face the St. Bonaventure University Bonnies in the Reilly Center at 4:00 p.m.
 
Notes
Thomas, who was honored pregame for scoring his 1,000^th career point at UMass on Saturday, brought his career total to 1,022, good for 34^th on the Fordham all-time scoring list… He also had three steals in the game to bring his team-leading total to 65, the sixth highest single season total in school history… Thomas has at least one steal in all but two games this year… Rhoomes recorded his 12^th double digit rebounding game of the year and the 19^th in his career… It was also his seventh career double-double… Rhoomes now has 616 career rebounds, moving him ahead of Bob Melvin and into 18^th place on the Fordham career rebounding list… The Rams outrebounded the Dukes, 38-32, and grabbed 17 offensive rebounds, outscoring Duquesne 12-2 on second chance points… Six Fordham seniors were honored in a pregame ceremony: student assistant Lauren Hutt, manager Nick Stanaj, forward Erando Halilaj and guards Nihad Musovic, DC Gaitley and Bryan Smith.