Men’s Basketball Edged by Richmond, 70-66

Richmond Va. – Yesterday was Valentine's Day and lots of people enjoyed the Necco sweethearts with special messages printed on them such as "Be Mine." If the Fordham men's basketball team were to give them to the University of Richmond team, the Rams should include a message that reads "Be Kind." Unfortunately the Spiders weren't kind again tonight, defeating the Rams, 70-66, in an Atlantic 10 matchup at the Robins Center, Fordham's tenth straight loss to Richmond in the arena.
 
With the loss, Fordham falls to 11-14 overall, 3-9 in the Atlantic 10, while Richmond improves to 9-17 overall, 4-9 in the conference.
 
Grad student guard Japhet Medor led the Rams with a game-high 24 points and he added six rebounds, while senior guard Jackie Johnson III finished with 15 points and three steals, and junior forward Joshua Rivera added 13.
 
Fordham trailed by three, 66-63, with 1:49 left and had a chance to pull within one but a Johnson layup was blocked and the Rams fouled Richmond's Duson Neskovic. Neskovic hit both free throws with just over seven seconds left before a Medor jumper made it a two-point game, 68-66, with 1.1 on the clock.
 
The Rams fouled Neskovic again and he made both free throws for the 70-66 final.
 
The Spiders led by one at the break, 27-26, but opened the second half with a 15-9 run to take a 42-35 lead 4:05 into the half.
 
Richmond led by seven again later in the half, 55-48, at the 8:04 mark but six straight Fordham points pulled the Rams within one, 55-54 on a Rivera layup two minutes later.
 
Richmond got the lead back to six, 66-60, with 2:54 left before a Rivera free throw and a Medor jumper made it a 66-63 game with 1:49 remaining.
 
Fordham started out strong, scoring the first eight points to take an 8-0 lead 3:43 into the game.
 
The Rams built the lead to as many as eleven, 17-6, on an Abdou Tsimbila tip-in with 11:21 left in the half before the Richmond offense heated up, scoring seven straight to cut the Fordham lead to four, 17-13, three minutes later.
 
Fordham managed to bump the lead to six, 21-15, on a Rivera jumper with 7:16 remaining but the Spiders outscored the Rams 12-5 over the final 6:42 to take a 27-26 lead at the break.
 
Takeaways
• Jackie Johnson has scored in double figures in 24 of the 25 games this year.
 
• Over the last three games Johnson is shooting .510 (26-51) from the field.
 
• Johnson played against Richmond with his third different team (Duquesne, UNLV, and Fordham).
 
• Joshua Rivera has scored in double figures in the last seven games, averaging 14.9 ppg over that stretch.
 
• Japhet Medor has scored in double figures in each of the last eleven games, averaging 18.1 ppg over that stretch.
 
• Over the past nine games Medor is shooting .886 (62-70) from the free throw stripe (he was 8-8 tonight).
 
• Abdou Tsimbila is shooting .667 (18-27) over the past eight games.
 
• The Rams fell for just the third time in eleven games when outrebounding the opponent.
 
• Neskovic, Richmond's leading scorer tonight, is no stranger to the Rams as he played at Dartmouth in 2022-23 and scored 23 points in Fordham's 88-74 win over the Big Green that season.
 
• The court at Richmond is named for Dick Tarrant, a 1951 Fordham graduate and Ram assistant coach from 1965-69, who served as head coach of the Spiders from 1981-93, leading 15^th-seeded Richmond to an upset win over #2 Syracuse in the 1991 NCAA Championship, the first win for a 15-seed at the championship.
 
By the Numbers
10 - Rebounds by Romad Dean, trying his season-high.
 
12 – Rebounds for Abdou Tsimbila, a season-high (previous high was eleven at Seton Hall).
 
16 – Offensive rebounds for Fordham, which the Rams converted into 18 second chance points.
 
18.9 – Jackie Johnson III's scoring average in Atlantic 10 games.
 
193 - Career blocks at Fordham for Abdou Tsimbila, who had two tonight, fourth on the Rams' career blocks list.
 
202– Career collegiate blocks for Abdou Tsimbila.
 
647 – Career rebounds at Fordham for Abdou Tsimbila, who had 12 tonight, moving him into 16th on the career rebounding list.
 
1,039 – Career collegiate points for Japhet Medor.
 
1,115 – Career collegiate points for Jackie Johnson III.
 
What's Next?
• The Rams continue their 2024-25 Atlantic 10 season by traveling to Pittsburgh, Pa., to face the Duquesne University Dukes UMPC Cooper Fieldhouse on Wednesday, February 19, at 7:00 p.m.
 
• It will be the 52nd meeting between Fordham and Duquesne on the hardwood.
 
• The Dukes lead the all-time series, which started in the 1949-50 season, 29-22, but the Rams have taken six of the last seven meetings, including the first matchup this year, .65-63, on January 26 in the Rose Hill Gym as Josh Rivera hit a corner three with 24 seconds left.