BRONX, N.Y.- Trailing by four with just under 10 minutes to play, the Fordham men's basketball team closed Tuesday's contest with Wagner on a 30-13 run, pulling away from the Seahawks, 72-59, at the Rose Hill Gym.
With the win, Fordham improved to 9-1 on the season, including a perfect 8-0 record at the Rose Hill Gym. It marks the first time since 1970-71 that the Rams are 9-1 or better in their first 10 games against Division I opponents.
Six of the Rams' nine wins on the season have been by double digits.
After scoring 23 points in Saturday's win over Tulane,
Darius Quisenberry matched a season-high with 25 points on 8-of-11 shooting, including a perfect 3-for-3 showing from beyond the arc. The graduate student is now averaging 18.4 points per game this season and shooting 41.2 percent from three-point range. He also went 6-of-7 from the stripe, moving to 88.9 percent on the year.
Rostyslav Novitskyi had a banner night for the Rams, scoring a career-high 19 points on 6-of-6 shooting from the floor and a 7-for-8 showing from the free throw line. The senior center also blocked two shots and pulled down five boards.
Kyle Rose scored eight points and logged a career-best three rejections while turning in a plus/minus rating of +24.
Abdou Tsimbila also blocked three Wagner shots on Tuesday night.
Khalid Moore grabbed a game-high seven rebounds despite being held to only 22 minutes because of foul trouble.
Antrell Charlton matched a season-high with seven assists while logging four rebounds and a pair of steals.
The Rams got off to a slow start, as Wagner (4-4) pulled ahead 13-4 following a 9-0 run with just over five minutes gone in the game. Fordham committed three turnovers during that opening stretch.
Fordham clawed within three, 23-20, on a pair of free throws from
Elijah Gray with 7:32 to play in the half before Wagner went off on an 8-1 run, bumping its lead to double digits, 31-21, just three minutes later.
Down by as many as 11 in the opening frame, Fordham closed the half on a 9-1 run, shaving its deficit down to three, 35-32, after 20 minutes of action. Quisenberry and Novitskyi combined to score the Rams' final 11 points of the half.
Quisenberry netted the first seven Fordham points of the second stanza to narrow the gap before a Novitskyi layup gave the Rams their first lead of the evening, 42-41, with 13:34 remaining. From there, Fordham went cold, going nearly five minutes without a point. The Rams' defense, however, held tough, limiting Wagner to just four points over that same stretch.
Ahead 46-42 near the midway mark of the half, Wagner went more than four minutes without a field goal, allowing consecutive three-point plays from Novitskyi to put the Rams back on top, 50-48, with seven minutes to go. Wagner knotted the score at 50 on the next possession before another three-point play, this time from
Zach Riley, put the Rams ahead by three.
Fordham would not trail the rest of the way. Riley answered another Wagner bucket with a trey before Quisenberry scored seven points on a 9-2 Fordham run, putting the game out of reach.
The Rams will look to notch win number 10 on the season when they host Binghamton on Friday night at 7 p.m. inside the Rose Hill Gym. No Fordham team has won its 10
th game of the season in the month of December since the 1970-71 team improved to 10-0 on Dec. 30.
