By The Editorial Board
Until Jan. 27, when Fordham’s women’s basketball team suffered a loss to Duquesne, the team was experiencing a seven-game winning streak in conference play. Despite the loss, the team currently has a 14-6 overall record and a 4-1 record in Atlantic 10 conference play — the best start in school history. Playing at an all-time high, the team is one of the most competitive on Fordham’s campus.
With strong play on both sides of the ball, the team has the potential to continue pressuring others teams in the Atlantic 10 and possibly earn a trip to the NCAA championship tournament, culminating in the Final Four, this year to be held in New Orleans.
While the women’s basketball team plays stellar games that, more often than not, have resulted in exicting wins, students do not seem particularly eager to support its players. During a home game against Richmond, a conference opponent who was expected to provide a tough challenge for the team, fans were noticeably sparse. Besides a handful of students, parents and members of the media, the venue lacked the energy appropriate for the high-stakes nature of the game. What remained was one of the best athletic teams on campus playing a Division I basketball game with the atmosphere of little more than a neighborhood pickup game. The outcome proved they are worthy of a much more energized home crowd.
We, at The Fordham Ram, believe that students should be willing to support a team that is competing on such a high level. It is a failure on the part of Fordham sports fans not to go and see the women’s basketball team. The team is playing a creative brand of basketball that contrasts the fluid movement and jump shooting of its guards with the hustle-rebound-and-putback play of the forwards and centers. It is an interesting style of attack performed beautifully by the team, albeit for a small audience.
As has been the case in the past with other women’s sports, women’s basketball is slipping through the cracks, while men’s basketball, a team that is struggling with an assortment of injuries and other setbacks, continues to receive abundant attention from the media and students. This is a team which, on the same day as the women’s triumph over Xavier, lost to Dayton by a final score of 96-51. While neither team is more deserving of attention than the other, both teams put on performances that warrant ample attention. The Fordham community owes women’s basketball that attention.
This is not to say that students should only support the women’s team because it is having a strong season. Students should attend games regardless of the conference ranking. But, it is a special case when a team like women’s basketball goes out and does what Fordham alumnus and legendary coach Vince Lombardi said “is the only thing”: win.
