Men’s Basketball Falls at Duquesne

Pittsburgh, Pa. – There are more than 700 sets of public stairs within the city limits of Pittsburgh. They are maintained by an Inspector of Steps. At times in the second half the Fordham men's basketball team must have felt like they were always climbing the steps only to find more steps to ascend. For every time the Rams seemed to get close to Duquesne tonight the Dukes managed to pull away. In the end the steps proved too much for Fordham as the Rams fell to the Dukes, 73-64, in an Atlantic 10 game at the UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse.
 
With the loss, Fordham falls to 11-15 overall, 3-10 in the Atlantic 10, while Duquesne improves to 11-15 overall, 6-7 in the conference.
 
The Rams were led by senior guard Jackie Johnson III, who scored a team-high 20 points while also nabbing three steals, while grad student forward Matt Zona chipped in with 12 points and four rebounds and junior forward Joshua Medor and grad student guard Japhet Medor each scored ten points with Medor dishing out eight assists.
 
The score was tied at the half at 31 and the Rams trailed by one, 36-35, following an Abdou Tsimbila dunk 1:40 into the second half.
 
The Dukes then went on a 10-2 run to take a 46-37 lead on a Jahsean Corbett driving layup with 14:58 on the clock.
 
The Rams responded with a 7-2 spurt to cut the Duquesne lead to four, 48-44, on a Jahmere Tripp driving layup just under two minutes later.
 
Fordham would trail by four twice more over the next six minutes, the final time at 52-48 as Johnson scored on a pullup jumper with 7:14 left. But an 11-2 run by the Dukes increased their advantage to eleven, 61-50, with just over four minutes remaining and the closest the Rams would get from there was seven, 61-54, a minute later.
 
The Rams jumped out to a 9-3 lead three minutes into the game and increased the lead to seven, 17-10 when Rivera dunked an alley-oop pass from Medor with three minutes later.
 
The Dukes chipped away at the Fordham lead, eventually tying the game at 24 with 5:43 left in the half and took a 27-24 lead 1:26 later.
 
Seven straight Ram points gave Fordham a 31-27 lead on another Rivera dunk with just over two minutes remaining but Duquesne scored the final four points of the half to knot that game at 31 at the break.
 
Takeaways
• Jackie Johnson has scored in double figures in 25 of the 26 games this year.
 
• Over the last four games Johnson is shooting .516 (33-64) from the field.
 
• Johnson played his first game at Duquesne since his freshman year when he was a member of the Dukes' squad.
 
• Joshua Rivera, who made his first start of the season tonight, has scored in double figures in the last nine games, averaging 14.1 ppg over that stretch.
 
• Japhet Medor has scored in double figures in each of the last 12 games, averaging 17.4 ppg over that stretch.
 
• Over the past ten games Medor has 51 assists with just 16 turnovers.
 
• Abdou Tsimbila is shooting .645 (20-31) over the past nine games.
 
• Romad Dean celebrated his birthday today.
 
• Duquesne entered the game third in the Atlantic 10 in three-point field goal percentage (.346) but shot just .250 (4-16) tonight.
 
• The Rams practiced at the University of Pittsburgh on Tuesday, the alma mater pf associate head coach Tray Woodall and assistant coach Ron Ramon. Ramon played for the Panthers from 2004-08 while Woodall was a Panther from 2008-13.
 
• Aside from the two coaches who are Pitt guards, the Rams also have other connections with the Panthers as Jameson O'Toole's father, Tim, is the associate head coach for Pitt. O'Toole served as head coach at Fairfield from 1998-2006 with two of his former player being Fordham head coach Keith Urgo and Fordham. O'Toole also served as an assistant at Fordham back in 1988-89.
 
By the Numbers
6 - Number of different starting lineups for the Rams in 2024-25.
 
6 – Double figure scoring games for Matt Zona this year.
 
19.0 – Jackie Johnson III's scoring average in Atlantic 10 games.
 
195 - Career blocks at Fordham for Abdou Tsimbila, who had two tonight, fourth on the Rams' career blocks list.
 
204– Career collegiate blocks for Abdou Tsimbila.
 
653 – Career rebounds at Fordham for Abdou Tsimbila, who had six tonight, 16th on the career rebounding list.
 
1,049 – Career collegiate points for Japhet Medor.
 
1,135 – Career collegiate points for Jackie Johnson III.
 
What's Next?
• The Rams continue their 2024-25 Atlantic 10 season by hosting the Davidson College Wildcats in the
historic Rose Hill Gym on Saturday, February 22, at 2:00 p.m.
 
• It will be the 22nd meeting between Fordham and Davidson on the hardwood.
 
• The Wildcats lead the all-time series, 17-4, including winning this year's first meeting, 74-64 at Davison on January 11 as Reid Bailey scored a game-high 23 points and Connor Kochera added 20 for the Wildcats while Jackie Johnson III and Japhet Medor each netted 20 for the Rams.