Men's Basketball Opens A-10 Play with Loss to Duquesne

Bronx, N.Y. – The Fordham men's basketball squad played a solid second half, shooting over 50 percent from the field and outscoring Duquesne 44-35, but it wasn't enough to overcome a cold first half as the Rams fell to the Dukes, 75-72, in the Atlantic 10 opener for both teams in the Rose Hill Gym.
 
With the loss, Fordham falls to 6-8 overall on the year while Duquense, which won its fourth straight, improves to 8-6 overall.
 
The Rams fell despite a game-high 18 points from graduate student Javontae Hawkins, who also added six rebounds, while junior Will Tavares netted eleven points and had three assists.
 

Fordham lost despite dishing out 19 assists and committing a season-low three turnovers and shooting 44.4 percent (8-18) from behind the arc. The Rams' Achilles heel tonight was rebounding as they were outrebounded 59-32 in the game.
 
The Rams trailed by 12 at the break but held the Dukes to shooting 32.4 percent (11-34) from the field in the second half and were able to take a short-lived lead late in the game, but Fordham was outscored 11-6 over the final 2:56.
 
Down ten, 58-48, with 9:21 remaining, the Rams used a 10-2 run to pull within two, 60-58. Hawkins started the run with a three-pointer and Christian Sengfelder finished it with a layup, off a nice feed from David Pekárek with 6:39 left.
 
Mike Lewis II hit a free throw and Emile Blackman a layup for Duquense over the next 47 seconds to bump the Dukes lead to five, 63-58, before a Pekárek trifecta and Joseph Chartouny steal and layup knotted the game at 63 with 5:04 on the clock.
 
A Blackman free throw at the 4:26 mark gave Duquesne a 64-63 lead before Chartouny fed Antwoine Anderson for a layup with 3:48 remaining to give Fordham its first lead of the game, 65-64.
 
Just under a minute later Anderson hit one of two charity shots to put the Rams up two, 66-64, but the Fordham offense then went cold as all the Rams could get was three-pointers from Pekárek and Hawkins in the final five seconds.
 
Prokop Slanina added ten points and four rebounds for the Rams while Pekárek finished with nine and Chartouny had seven points, nine rebounds, five assists and five steals.
 
The Rams return to action on Wednesday, January 4, as they travel to Richmond, Va., to face the University of Richmond Spiders in the Robins Center at 7:00 p.m.
 
Notes
The Dukes now lead the all-time series with Fordham, 21-14.
 
The previous season-low for turnover for Fordham was eight in the home opener with NYIT.
 
Duquesne grabbed 59 rebounds, 20 offensive, the most total and offensive boards for a Fordham opponent this year.
 
The nine rebounds for Chartouny ties his season-high (originally set at Manhattan).
 
Jesse Bunting blocked a career-high three shots for the Rams (previous high was two), who finished with six rejections in the game.
 
Pekárek dished out a career-high five assists (previous high was three).