Men’s Basketball Takes Down Rhode Island at Atlantic 10 Championship

Washington, D.C. – The Washington Capitals, who play their home games at the Capital One Arena, have a tradition where if they are down a goal entering the third period they play a scene from the movie "Road Trip." The scene is where Tom Green's character is motivating a snake to eat a mouse and he screams, "Unleash the Fury." Even though the 15^th-seeded Fordham men's basketball team was never down in today's Atlantic 10 Championship game against tenth-seeded Rhode Island, it may have been appropriate to play it before the game. Fordham unleashed its offense today, scoring 88 points, as the Fordham Rams took down the Rhode Island Rams, 88-71, to advance to the second round of the championship.
 
With the win, Fordham will now face seventh-seeded George Washington University on Thursday at 5:00 p.m.
 
Senior guard Jackie Johnson III led all scorers in the game with 29 points for Fordham, while also adding five rebounds and three assists, while grad student guard Japhet Medor netted 26 points, grabbed three rebounds and had two steals, and Romad Dean finished with 14 points and six rebounds.
 
Unlike the last meeting between the two teams, an 86-67 Rhode Island win last Saturday, Fordham led from the start, jumping out to a five-point advantage, 13-8, four minutes into the game and then using a 10-4 run to build the lead to eleven, 23-12, on a Medor jumper with 12:55 left in the half.
 
Fordham then outscored Rhode Island 15-4 over the next six minutes, taking its largest lead of the day, 38-16, following a Dean jumper with 6:47 on the clock. Dean scored the final seven points of the run.
 
Rhode Island started to chip away at the Fordham lead, getting it down to 12, 49-37, at the break.
 
An Abdou Tsimbila layup 38 seconds into the second half bumped the Fordham lead to 14, 51-37, but Rhode Island then used a 13-4 run to make it a six-point game, 56-50, on a Quentin Diboundje basket with 14:28 left.
 
But Medor answered the Rhode Island run with a three-pointer 23 seconds later and Johnson followed that with a floating jumper off a Rhode Island turnover to get the Fordham lead back to eleven, 61-50, at the 13:11 mark.
 
A David Fuchs dunk made it a nine-point game, 61-52, 16 seconds later and Rhode Island would get as close as eight, 74-66, with 5:23 remaining before a Dean trifecta bumped the Fordham lead back to double digits for good.
 
Takeaways
• Jackie Johnson III has scored in double figures in 31 of the 32 games this year.
 
• The 29 points boosts Johnson's scoring average to 19.0 ppg on the season. No Fordham player has averaged more than 18.6 points per contest over the course of a season since Joe Paterno, the program's fourth leading scorer all-time, averaged 20.0 points in 1988-89.
 
• Japhet Medor has scored in double figures in 15 of the past 18 games.

• Over the past 16 games Japhet Medor has 73 assists with just 25 turnovers.
 
• Abdou Tsimbila is shooting .597(37-62) over the past ten games.

• The 2024-25 Fordham Rams have been a team of second chances as they rank third in
the Atlantic 10 in offensive rebounds, averaging 12.1 /game and they grabbed 12 today.
 
• Grad student forward Abdou Tsimbila leads the Rams on the offensive glass, averaging 2.2/game, seventh in the Atlantic 10 and he had one today.
 
• Fordham has now won at least one game in the Atlantic 10 Tournament for the fourth straight year. 
 
• The Rams became the first 15-seed to win a game at the Atlantic 10 Championship.
 
• The 49 first half points for the Rams were the most against a Division I opponent this year (Fordham scored 56 vs. Georgian Court).
 
• The 88 points are the most scored in an Atlantic 10 Championship game for the Rams (previous high was 74 vs. Dayton in 2014).
 
• The Rams practiced at Gonzaga College High School on Tuesday, the alma mater of head coach Keith Urgo.
 
• The meeting with Rhode Island in the first round of the 2025 Atlantic 10 Champion­ship is the sixth time the Rams have met an A-10 team for the third time in season, the second time with Rhode Island (the Rams played Davidson three times last year).
 
• This is only the second meeting between the two Rams at the Atlantic 10 Championship. Rhode Island took the first meeting, 73-69, in the 2007 quarterfinals.
 
By the Numbers
60 – Career double figure scoring games for Jackie Johnson III.
 
84 – Three-pointers made this year by Jackie Johnson III, fourth all-time at Fordham, and the most by a Ram since Jermaine Anderson (89) in 2005-06.
 
128 – Career games played at Fordham for Abdou Tsimbila, second all-time for the Rams.
   
251 – Three-pointers attempted this year by Jackie Johnson III, the program's single-season record (previous record was 246 by Andre McClendon (1989-90).

695 – Career rebounds at Fordham for Abdou Tsimbila, who had seven today, moving him into 14th on the career rebounding list.
 
1,136 – Career collegiate points for Japhet Medor.
 
1,234 – Career collegiate points for Jackie Johnson III.
 
What's Next?
• Fordham will face seventh-seeded George Washington University in the second round on Thursday at 5:00 p.m.
 
• It will be the 46th meeting between Fordham and George Washington on the hardwood.
 
• The Revolutionaries lead the all-time series, which started in the 1914-15 season, 32-13 but the Rams have taken three of the past four, including a wild 119-113 triple overtime game in Washington, D.C., last year on Jan. 3 as Japhet Medor scored 24 points and Antrell Charlton added 22 for the Rams.
 
• George Washington took this year's meeting, 81-58, on March 5 in the Rose Hill Gym.
 
• The Rams took the 2022-23 meeting, 85-70, in the Rose Hill Gym on January 28 behind 30 points and eight rebounds from Khalid Moore and 22 points from Darius Quisenberry.
 
• It will be the fourth meeting at the Atlantic 10 Championship between the two teams, the first since 2021, with the Revolutionaries leading the series, 2-1.