Women's Basketball at Maine Thursday, Host FDU Sunday

Schedule Page
Game Notes
Twitter Updates on @FordhamWBB
 
Bronx, N.Y. – Fordham (5-4) will seek to start a new win streak when it travels to Anna DeWolfe's neck of the woods, at Maine (3-6) on Thursday night at 7 p.m. before returning to host Fairleigh Dickinson (7-2) on Sunday at 3 p.m. in the second game of a doubleheader with the men's squad.
 
All ways to follow along with the action, as well as tickets for Sunday, can be found at the schedule page above.  
 
Ramses Challenge
Join the Ramses Challenge, a new philanthropic initiative supporting our student-athletes! Pledge a set amount of money for each three-pointer or steal this year, or make a one-time gift to the program. All proceeds are tax-deductible and go directly to Fordham women's basketball. Read more here. So far, the Rams have 87 made threes (averaging 9.7 per game – 9^th nationally) and a whopping 85 steals already (9.4 per game – 93^rd)! Thank you for all your continued support!
 
Last Time Out
Fordham picked up its first win of the year when scoring under 70 points, doing so in a 65-55 slugfest with Manhattan in the 53rd Battle of the Bronx. The Rams used an explosive 28-point first quarter to lead for nearly the entire contest. Over the opening 10 minutes, the offense converted 12-of-17 shots (70.6%) with three triples, with Asiah Dingle putting an exclamation mark on the quarter with a buzzer-beating heave from deep.
 
In her 100th career start, Dingle was named the MVP of the game with a game-high 22 points on an efficient 9-of-14 shooting, with four rebounds, a career-high seven assists, and two steals. Anna DeWolfe scored 16 of her 18 points in the first half, finishing with an 8-of-13 line and three assists, while Kaitlyn Downey fell just one point shy of her sixth double-double of the year, grabbing 11 rebounds. Megan Jonassen also finished in double figures, with 10 points, seven boards, and two steals, and Jada Dapaa contributed eight rebounds (five offensive), six points, one assist, one steal, and one block.
 
Series Histories
Maine - The schools have met three times with the Black Bears holding a 2-1 advantage. Maine won both home and away in 2000 and 2001 but the Rams got revenge 17 years later with a 72-64 overtime victory in the first game of the 2018 Fordham Holiday Classic. Lauren Holden played all 45 minutes and scored 11 points with six assists, while Kaitlyn Downey, who started, and Megan Jonassen combined for 13 points, nine rebounds (seven offensive), two assists, and a steal.
 
FDU – Despite the proximity, this will be just the eighth time the two schools have met, with Fordham holding a slim 4-3 advantage since the first meeting in 1981. The Knights, took the first three games in the series but it's been four straight for the Rams since, most recently last January at home, a 63-36 victory over FDU and former associate head coach Angelika Szumilo. After a slow start to the contest, Fordham outscored the Knights, 45-16, over the middle periods en route to victory. Anna DeWolfe scored 23 on 10-of-20 shooting, Asiah Dingle posted 14 points, five assists, four rebounds, and three steals, Matilda Flood hauled in a career-high nine rebounds, four offensive, and Maranda Nyborg tallied four points, three blocks, three boards, two assists, and a steal off the bench.
 
Nationally Speaking (as of 12/7)
Fordham have played at a much faster tempo this season, averaging 75.4 points per contest, which ranks 58th in the nation. The offense's 1.21 assist/turnover ratio, second in the Atlantic 10, sits 36hh nationally. Fordham also makes the ninth-most threes per game (9.7) with the 35th-best success rate (36.9%). The Rams are dishing out the 29th-most assists per game (17.3) while committing just 14.3 turnovers per game, ranked 69th, and have the 93rd-best steals per game rate (9.4) in the country.
 
Individually, Anna DeWolfe's 28 three-pointers are sixth-most in the nation, while Kaitlyn Downey's five double-doubles rank ninth. Asiah Dingle's 29 steals are 11th-most, while her 3.2 steals per game sit 21st. Dingle's 19.9 points per game are 26th, DeWolfe's 17.4 rate 76th. Both are in the top-30 for field goals made. Downey's 9.9 boards per game rank 28th.
 
Triple D - DeWolfe, Dingle, Downey
Shut the front door! The Fordham trio have been gnarly, righteous, dynamite, and, perhaps most importantly, the bomb-dot-com. All three earned Atlantic 10 All-Conference honors and had at least one A-10 Player of the Week award last season. Combined, they made up 66.1% of the team's scoring on a combined 40.2% shooting overall. They are the real deal. Through three games so far, those numbers are similar – 67.5% of the scoring on 43.9% shooting. For context for the uninitiated, this entire blurb is related to Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.
 
Three 1,000-Point Scorers
With her tough turnaround second-quarter jumper at Princeton, Kaitlyn Downey became the 25th Ram to score 1,000 points in program history. Now 22nd with 1,076 points, she joins Asiah Dingle (1,625 across three schools and five seasons) and Anna DeWolfe (1,452 - seventh-most in school history). Nationally, the Rams are one of 11 schools with three active student-athletes with 1,000 career points, although they are the only mid-major school. Virginia Tech has four.
 
Asiah and Co. Steal the Show
You thought Asiah Dingle's five steals in the season opener was a handful? She doubled that with a program-record 10 against Saint Peter's, notching her ninth and 10th on consecutive possessions in the third quarter. Her previous best was six, which she'd accomplished several times over her career, including once with Fordham. The previous school record was eight, done five times by four student-athletes, but not since Lauren Fleischer in 2001. Her teammates added 11 thefts against the Peacocks to set a new single-game team record, as well, by three, with 21.
 
Efficiency
The Rams have started out hot from the field to begin the season, shooting 42.6% as a group and 36.9% from behind the arc. The former number is 112th nationally, the latter 35th. Six Rams averaging over 10 minutes are shooting 40.0% or better from the field, led by Megan Jonassen (58.7%) and Colleen McQuillen (47.8%). From distance, Dingle (42.2%) and DeWolfe (40.0%) have been on fire, the former even more so over her previous few games, hitting 16-of-29 attempts (55.2%). Jonassen (6-of-13) and McQuillen (7-of-15) have been even better on less shots, with McQuillen leading the Atlantic 10. The team also has a 1.21 assist/turnover ratio, ranked 36th in the country.
 
Are You Experienced?
Fordham's current starting lineup entered this season with a mammoth 488 career games played, unofficially the most in the country via asking national Division I SIDs. Behind them at the beginning of the year were Virginia Tech (431), Oklahoma (427), and UT Arlington (402, but 444 including JUCO). Fordham is now up to 533 games played for its starting five with grad transfer Jada Dapaa adding 96 off the bench.
 
Back-to-Back Players of the Week
Asiah Dingle earned the league's first weekly accolade of the year after helping Fordham begin the year 2-1 while averaging 17.3 points on 46.2% shooting, 6.7 rebounds, a whopping 5.0 steals, including a record 10 thefts against Saint Peter's, 3.3 assists, and 0.7 blocks all over just 27.7 minutes per game. Then it was Kaitlyn Downey's turn the following week, her third time winning the award, after averaging an 18-point, 10-rebound double-double last week with 3.5 assists, 1.0 blocks, and 1.0 steals. She also became the 25th Ram to reach 1,000 career points, at Princeton.
 
Downey Moving Up
The graduate forward became the 25th Ram to reach 1,000 career points at Princeton with a tough turnaround jumper in the paint. She's up to 22nd now with 1,076. Against Wagner she moved into the all-time top-10 for career rebounds, now past Suzanne Maguire ('97) for seventh with 748. She entered the year in 10th for career three-pointers made and is now eighth with 185 and also just joined the top-10 for career appearances with 122, while her 116 career starts are fifth-most.
 
Captains +1
Fifth-years Kaitlyn Downey and Megan Jonassen, plus senior Anna DeWolfe, served as team captains last year. They will do so again this year plus new addition Jada Dapaa, who was voted as the fourth captain by her teammates. It's Downey's fourth year as a captain, most in program history after J.J. Radice's three years, DeWolfe's third, and Jonassen's second.
 
Up Next
The Rams host Seton Hall on Saturday, December 17^th, at 2 p.m. before the holiday break.