Men’s Basketball Comes Up Short at Richmond

Richmond, Va. – The United States is home to around 3,500 species of spiders. Most of the spiders in the USA are not dangerous for humans or larger pets. In fact, there are only two types of spiders in the US that can be dangerous for humans: the black widow and the brown recluse and only black widow spiders are found in Virginia. But it's another Spider in Virginia that is detrimental to the Fordham men's basketball program. The University of Richmond Spiders. The Spiders outscored the Rams 12-1 over the final 2:34 to defeat Fordham, 68-58, in an Atlantic 10 game in the Robins Center.
 
With the loss, Fordham has its five-game winning streak snapped and falls to 18-5 overall, 6-4 in the Atlantic 10, while Richmond, the defending Atlantic 10 champions, evens its record at 12-12, 5-6 in the conference.
 
Grad student Khalid Moore led the Rams with 12 points while grabbing five rebounds and junior center Abdou Tsimbila added ten points and six rebounds.
 
Grad student guard Darius Quisenberry recorded his 2,000th career collegiate points with a layup late in the game, becoming the 648th NCAA Division I player to reach that milestone.
 
Fordham took its biggest lead of the day, 47-36, on a Rostyslav Novitskyi layup with 12:12 remaining but Richmond used a 13-1 run to take its first lead of the half, 49-48, seven minutes later.
 
The game was tied three times over the next 2:30, the final at 53 with 4:48 left. The Spiders scored the next four points to take a 56-53 lead but a Moore three-point play made it a one-point game, 56-55, with 2:34 on the clock.
 
But the Fordham offense went cold and the Spiders connected on their free throw down the stretch.
 
Richmond jumped out to an 8-2 lead before the Rams used a 17-3 run to take a 19-11 lead on a Romad Dean three-point play.
 
The Spiders managed to cut the Fordham lead to three later in the half, 27-24 with 3:23 left, but the Rams outscored Richmond 8-5 the rest of the half to take a 35-29 lead at the break.
 
Takeaways
• The Rams outscored the Spider, 20-12, in points off turnovers.
 
• Fordham fell to 0-4 this year when scoring less than 60 points.
 
• The Rams wore special warmup t-shirts in honor of Black History Month.
 
• The 6-4 start to the A-10 season is also the first time the Rams are .500 or better after ten games since the 2007 season when they also started out conference play 6-4.
 
• The Rams have held an opponent below its season scoring average in five of the past six games (St. Bonaventure was the lone exception, scoring 68 and was averaging 67.1 ppg).
 
• The game was played in front of a sold out crowd.
 
• The court at Richmond is named the Dick Tarrant Court, a 1951 Fordham graduate, who coached the Spiders for 12 years from 1981-1992 who also served as an assistant coach at Fordham
 
By the Numbers
5 - Blocks by Rostyslav Novitskyi over the past three games.
 
8 – Different Rams scored in the game.
 
57 - Steals for the Rams over the past five games.
 
2,001 – Career collegiate points for Darius Quisenberry.
 
What's Next?
• The Rams continue the 2022-2023 Atlantic 10 season by hosting the Univer­sity of Massachusetts Minutemen in the historic Rose Hill Gym on Wednes­day, February 8, at 7:00 p.m.
 
• It will be the 52nd meeting between Fordham and Massachusetts on the hardwood.
 
• The Minutemen lead the all-time series, which started in the 1967-68 season, 33-18.
 
• The Rams took last year's first meeting, 85-73, on February 28 in the Rose Hill Gym as Chuba Ohams scored a career-high 23 points and added eleven rebounds, while UMass took the second two days later, 81-73, in Amherst behind 17 points and ten rebounds from TJ Weeks.