Women's Basketball Heads to Massachusetts for Wednesday Night Rematch

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Bronx, N.Y. – Fordham (16-8, 8-3) takes to the road for a critical top-of-the-league meeting with NR/RV Massachusetts (19-4, 9-1) on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. on ESPN+ and WFUV.
 
Play4Kay Pink Game/NGWSD
Saturday's contest was the team's annual PINK game, to honor and support those afflicted by breast cancer, while raising money for breast cancer awareness and research. It was also a belated National Girls and Women in Sports Day celebration. Fans interested in donating to the Play4Kay foundation can do so at this link.
 
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 197 made threes and a whopping 213 steals! Thank you for all your continued support!
 
Last Time Out
The Rams scored 80 or more points in back-to-back games for the second time this year with its 80-64 victory over Loyola Chicago on Saturday afternoon. The Ramblers jumped out to a 7-2 lead prompting an early Fordham timeout, but the respite proved beneficial as the Rams quickly tied the game and went ahead for good with eight unanswered points from Kaitlyn Downey. The lead would grow as large as 26 early in the fourth quarter.
 
Anna DeWolfe netted 20 points, shooting 8-of-15 overall and 4-of-9 from distance, with three assists, Asiah Dingle added 16 points, three rebounds, three dimes, and four steals, and Kaitlyn Downey notched her ninth double-double of the year, finishing with 13 points and 10 rebounds. Jada Dapaa nearly did the same, falling one point shy, in just 19 minutes. Off the bench, Rose Nelson scored eight points for the second straight contest and Matilda Flood racked up five points, seven rebounds, five assists, a block, and a steal over 19 minutes.
 
Series History
Massachusetts holds a 26-22 all-time series lead since 1980, an 18-point Fordham win at the AIAW Eastern Regional. The Rams used 13 straight wins between 2011 and 2020 to wrest control of the rivalry, but the Minutewomen have retaken the lead with five consecutive victories since, including at each of the last two A-10 Championships. Most recently, UMass won, 66-57, in the Bronx despite Anna DeWolfe's season-high 33 points.
 
Iron Women
Kaitlyn Downey set the program record for career starts at Saint Joseph's, her 127th, in her 133rd career appearance, third-most all-time. Downey has never missed a contest, making all 137 appearances consecutively since arriving on Rose Hill. Anna DeWolfe made her 100th consecutive start against Richmond, like Downey all consecutively since she arrived in the Bronx, up to 103 straight, and Sarah Karpell appeared in her 100th game at St. Bonaventure. Asiah Dingle is also up to 133 games, too.
 
Where Do the 2022-23 Rams Stand In Program History?
Fordham is playing at a much faster tempo this season and its 73.5 points per game average, 52nd in the nation, is a perfect example of that. In fact, that would be a program record. The current record is 73.2, set in 1983-84, 0.6 better than the 1991-92 team. With a handful of games left, the team is also threatening in several other categories. The squad already has the ninth-most threes (197), the best assist/turnover ratio (1.20), and second-fewest turnovers (321). The team's 76.8% free-throw rate is also currently third-best all-time.
 
Nationally Speaking (as of 2/6)
Fordham have played at a much faster tempo this season, averaging 73.5 points per contest, which ranks 50th in the nation and would be a program record. The offense's 1.20 assist/turnover ratio, tops in the Atlantic 10, sits 25th nationally, with the 40th-most assists per game (16.0). From behind the arc, the Rams are 32nd with 8.2 threes per game, 49th with 24.1 attempts, and 70th with a 34.1% success rate. The squad is committing just 13.4 turnovers per contest, ranked 31st, with the 44th-best turnover margin (3.96). The offense is also hitting free throws at the 29th-best rate (76.8%) despite taking the 346th-fewest attempts (10.96).
 
Individually, Asiah Dingle is sixth in steals per game, 12th in field goals, and 27th in points per game. Anna DeWolfe is 32nd in points per game, 13th in field goals, 14th in total threes, 30th in threes per game, and 47th in minutes per game.
 
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 13 games, those numbers are similar - 66.1% of the scoring on 43.5% shooting with two Player of the Week honors for Dingle and one for Downey. For context for the uninitiated, this entire blurb is an ode 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 14th with 1,223 point, she joins Asiah Dingle (1,903 across three schools and five seasons) and Anna DeWolfe (1,737 - fifth-most in school history). Nationally, the Rams are one of 12 schools with three active student-athletes with 1,000 career points, although they are one of only two mid-major schools, along with UMass. Virginia Tech has four 1,000-point scorers.
 
Hungry Like DeWolfe
The 2020-21 Atlantic 10 Co-Player of the Year and two-time WBCA All-America honorable mention, senior Anna DeWolfe is averaging 18.4 points per game on 43.5% shooting overall and 38.4% shooting from distance (66-of-172). Named to the Preseason All-Conference First Team, she became the 24th Ram to reach 1,000 career points on December 12, 2021 against Lafayette, doing so on a patented mid-range jumper, hitting nothing but net, and is now up to fifth all-time with 1,737 points.
 
For her career, across 103 consecutive starts, DeWolfe is fourth with 682 field goals, fourth with 225 three-pointers, fifth with a career 16.9 per-game scoring average, is eighth with a 82.7% rate the line, and has joined the all-time top-10 for career minutes played against Richmond, now seventh with 3,780.
 
Dingle All The Way
The Boston native is up to 133 career appearances across three schools and four-plus seasons, now with 115 career starts, starting all but one contest for Fordham since she arrived. Last year a Third Team All-Conference selection and now a preseason Second Team honoree, Dingle leads the team and league in scoring (19.0 points) and steals (80), while shooting 44.3% from the floor, 33.6% from behind the arc, and 77.8% on a team-high 90 free-throw attempts. Her 80 steals are already fourth-most in a campaign in program history.
 
For her career, she has accumulated 1,903 points, averaging 14.3 per game, 684 field goals, 306 steals, and a 411 assist/428 turnover ratio. She is a 42.8% career shooting with averages of 4.1 rebounds, 3.1 assists, and 2.3 steals per game. Prior to her arrival in the Bronx, Dingle was a 19.2% three-point shooter on 104 career attempts. Last year she shot 18-of-64 (28.1%) and has continued to work at her long-range shot, shooting 33.6% this year on a career-high 107 attempts.
 
Among active players in Division I, she has been in a three-way battle all season for steals alongside Michigan State's Stephanie Visscher and Gardner-Webb's Jhessyka Williams, but is currently tops in the nation, 17 ahead of the latter. She's also 12th with 461 free throws made and seventh with 635 attempts.
 
Princess Of Thieves
Asiah Dingle played in her 50th Fordham game against Richmond, where she totaled eight steals, tied for second-most in program history. She, of course, owns the record, too, set this year against Saint Peter's, with 10, and her 80 steals this year are already fourth-most in a single season. Dingle is Division I's active leader in steals by a whopping 17, with 306. She has at least one steal in all but two contests this year and at least two in all but four, with 12 instances of four or more. Last year she had eight such games and is up to 33 for her four-year career.
 
Downey Moving Up
The graduate forward broke the program record at Saint Joseph's for career starts, with 127, surpassing Samantha Clark ('17), and has now appeared in 137 consecutive contests since arriving in the Bronx. At Princeton earlier this season, she became the 25th Ram to reach 1,000 career points. She's up to 14th now with 1,223, passing Cecelia Wanker ('83), Hannah Missry ('17), and former teammate and now assistant coach Lauren Holden ('19) at Dayton. She also fifth with 859 career rebounds, seventh with 210 three-pointers, and 10th with 85 blocks.
 
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.
 
Up Next
Fordham is off this weekend and next plays at La Salle next Thursday at 11 a.m.