Women's Basketball at Massachusetts on Saturday

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Game Notes
 
Bronx, N.Y. – The Fordham women's basketball team (14-8, 6-3) continued its dominance at home with a pair of wins this past week and now head back to the road for Saturday afternoon's contest at Massachusetts. Tip-off from the Mullins Center is set for 1 p.m. with ESPN+ and WFUV 90.7 FM providing live coverage.
 
Lace Up 4 Pediatric Cancer
In what has become a yearly tradition, the Rams wore yellow shoelaces for their game at George Mason to raise money and awareness for pediatric cancer research. Though it's over, fans can always continue to contribute. To make a donation, see Fordham's team page. To learn more about Go4TheGoal and its mission, click here. 
 
Play4Kay
Last Saturday's game against La Salle was the Rams' annual Play4Kay game. In 2020, fans have the opportunity to pledge per free throw made by their team during the month of February. To pledge, fans can find their team on the leaderboard of the free throw challenge at KayYow.com.
 
Last Time Out
Fordham led nearly the entire way on Wednesday morning in front of a sellout Kids Day crowd inside the Rose Hill Gym. The visiting Rams took an early and brief 4-3 lead before the host Rams took control of the contest. Fordham rattled off 12 unanswered points after that and led, 15-6, after the opening 10 minutes. Rhody was able to cut the deficit to five, 17-12, with a 6-0 run midway through the second, but the Rams ripped off a 17-5 stretch to finish the first half. Anna DeWolfe converted a three-point play with just two seconds left on the clock to double the visitors' score, 34-17. Rhode Island began the second stanza with a 10-2 run over the opening five minutes to get within nine before a quick 7-0 run pushed the lead back to 16. Rhody was able to close the frame with an 11-6 run, taking the quarter, 21-15, but still trailing, 49-38. The Rams never led by less than eight points the rest of the way.
 
DeWolfe finished with a team-high 18 points on an efficient 6-of-10 shooting from the field with three rebounds and a steal over 34 minutes. Bre Cavanaugh played all 40 minutes for the ninth time this year and chipped in 17 points and seven rebounds. Kendell Heremaia played a career-high 39 minutes and finished two boards shy of a double-double, scoring 10 points with eight boards and two steals. Zara Jillings came off the bench for season-highs of seven points and five rebounds across 20 minutes. Fordham shot 40.4% overall but just 28.0% from long range. Still, the hosts held Rhody to just 3-of-15 (20.0%) from downtown, while committing just 10 turnovers.
 
Series History vs. Massachusetts
This will be the 43rd all-time meeting between the two schools dating back to 1980. UMass long held serve in the rivalry but have stormed back under Gaitley's reign with 11 consecutive victories since she took over and 12 overall. Their most recent meeting was a 73-62 decision in the Atlantic 10 quarterfinals in Pittsburgh last March. Three weeks earlier, the Rams had won by a similar score, 76-64, at home. In the latter contest, Cavanaugh led charge with a fantastic offensive game - 27 points on 10-of-19 shooting, 5-o-10 from deep, with six boards, three assists, and a steal over 38 minutes. Kaitlyn Downey added 15 points on 5-of-7 shooting, 3-of-4 from behind the arc, as well. In the quarterfinal contest, Cavanaugh shot 12-of-21 overall, one shy of her career-high for makes, for 29 points, three assists, two boards, and two steals over 39 minutes. Kendell Heremaia scored 14 points with a stat-stuffing line.
 
Atlantic 10 Action
The Rams are 6-3 in league play thus far and outscored opponents by 6.3 points while shooting  40.3% from the floor. Bre Cavanaugh has been scorching hot, averaging 22.1 points on 43.6% shooting, 34.3% from distance, and 84.6% from the charity stripe. Kendell Heremaia's producing 10.7 points, 8.3 rebounds, 2.6 assists, and 2.7 steals per game. The offense has been fantastic inside the arc (46.6%) but have struggled from long distance, converting just 30.3% attempts, similar to opponents' mark of 29.2%. Cavanaugh has been fantastic from deep, and Sarah Karpell has hit 2-of-5, but the other three starters are shooting 30.3% or worse on at least 33 attempts. Still, the Rams are committing just 11.0 turnovers per contest and rarely hurt themselves.
 
Busy Bre
Bre Cavanaugh has started all 90 contests in her Fordham career and has been nothing short of spectacular for the Rams during her time in maroon and white. The redshirt junior became the third-fastest Ram to reach 1,000 career points, doing so in 60 contests, and has already joined the all-time top-five in scoring, amassing 1,576 career points, now fourth-most all-time. The Allamuchy, N.J. native has racked up 3,450 career minutes thus far out of a possible 3,630 (95.0%), finishing each of the last two seasons within the top-10 in that category nationally and doing so again this year. She's already moved into the top-10 for three-pointers, now sixth with 191, is fourth with 347 free throws, ninth with 519 field goals, and is third all-time with a 17.5 point-per-game average. She has been held to single digit scoring just nine times in her career and has 38 games of 20 or more points. She has played under 30 minutes just once in her career - a blowout win over Iona during her rookie season. This season, she leads the Atlantic 10 with 19.0 points per game, ranked 26th in Division I, and leads the conference with a 84.5% free-throw rate. She's in the top-75 for several categories nationally, as well, which you can see over the next few pages.
 
Bombs Away!
After setting a new program record for made three-pointers last year, it's no surprise to see the 2019-20 Rams are one of the voluminous three-point shooting teams in the land, in the top-35 in total attempts and makes. The Rams have taken the 19th-most attempts (556), have made the 28th-most (177), and are 35th with an average of 8.0 per game. The win at Charlotte was a masterclass in long-range sniping as the team hit 48.4% of its 31 attempts, with the 15 makes ranking second-most all-time at Fordham and most away from home. Kaitlyn Downey hit 6-of-8 in the contest, the most by a Ram since Bre Cavanaugh hit six at Drexel in the second round of the 2018 WNIT. Against St. Bonaventure, the Rams hit 10-of-14 from distance (71.4%), a fifth straight game with double-digit makes. Among their A-10 rivals, the Rams have made the most threes and are averaging .5 more than the school with the second-most, Duquesne (7.5).
 
This is Our House
Since Gaitley took over before the 2011-12 season, the Rams hold a 109-31 (77.9%) record at home across 140 contests. Over the last four seasons, the Rams are 53-11 in the Rose Hill Gym, including a 24-5 mark in conference play and three straight Holiday Classic crowns. Last year, Fordham finished 12-4 at home overall and 6-2 in league action. On the flip side, Gaitley's Rams are 74-71 (51.0%) on the road or on neutral ground during her tenure.
 
Defense, Defense, Defense
No stat better represents the Gaitley-infused defense than Fordham's 73-7 record when holding opponents under 50 points during her tenure. Three Januarys ago, Saint Joseph's defeated the Rams, 47-44, at Hagan Arena in Philadelphia, ending a streak of 38 consecutive contests with such victories. The last time before that loss, coincidentally, was also against the Hawks, in the 2013 A-10 Championship game at the Barclays Center, 47-46. The team's 47-44 loss to VCU last January 16th snapped a streak of 16 straight wins. The team's 48-44 loss at Dayton broke a stretch of 11 such games, but holding La Salle to 45 points last Saturday put them back in the right column.
 
Cavanaugh, Heremaia Back-to-Back as A-10 Players of the Week
Kendell Heremaia picked up her first career conference accolade after nearly triple-doubling in the big win over Samford to begin this year's Holiday Classic, while Cavanaugh garnered her second award of the season and the sixth of her career by averaging 24.0 points with no turnovers in two wins two weeks ago. Bre also earned Atlantic 10 Player of the Week honors on December 9 after averaging a 22-point, 11-rebound double-double over two wins last week. The next day, she earned the same distinction from the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association and was named National Jesuit Player of the Week by the AJCU. Anna DeWolfe was the team's first award-getter with her Rookie of the Week on November 25.
 
Rams in the Pros
G'mrice Davis, who graduated in 2017, currently plays professionally with Bnot Hertzeliya in Israel after spending time in Greece with GAS Kalyvion and Australia with the Rockland Cyclones, which featured her former teammate and 2019 graduate Mary Goulding. Lauren Holden, who graduated in 2019, immediately transitioned into coaching, joining up with former associate head coach Angelika Szumilo at Fairleigh Dickinson as one of her assistants. 
 
Up Next
The Rams return home to host Davidson on Thursday night, February 13, at 7 p.m.