The 2024-25 season for Fordham University Men’s Basketball kicked off on Monday, Nov. 4 — and it’s hard to think of a bigger stage for the Rams to get their year underway. Making the quick trip across the Throgs Neck Bridge to the Carnesecca Arena in Jamaica, Queens, Fordham squared up with Hall of Fame coach Rick Pitino and the Saint John’s University Red Storm.
The Big East got the better of the Atlantic 10, with St. John’s taking the season opener 90-62 behind a massive second-half surge. Senior transfer Jackie Johnson III shined in his Fordham debut, scoring a game-high 23 points, 17 of which came in the first half, but the Rams were outmatched by a bigger and, to be frank, better opponent in the Red Storm.
The season-opening loss isn’t one fans should lose sleep over. Fordham played far from a perfect game and struggled to find a flow on offense, but one game is one game. There’s a larger, long-term mission at work for the Rams this year.
Coming off a disappointing 2023-24 season where the Rams finished 13-20 overall and 6-12 in the A-10, Fordham has been picked to finish 14th out of 15 teams in the conference.
“Honestly, I don’t know who ranks those,” said head coach Keith Urgo. “They’re not in our practices, they’re not in our locker room. We have a lot more talent, a lot more depth, a lot more experience and maturity. Two years ago, we were picked to finish 14 out of 15 teams and turned out to be tied for second, so you just never know. The season is so unpredictable.”
The 2022-23 season that Urgo alluded to was a special one for Fordham and the Rose Hill fans. The Rams went 25-8, one win shy of the program record, and finished with the second-best conference record in the A-10, sparked by an astonishing 18-2 record in the Rose Hill Gym.
That’s a big part of why last season’s 11th-place finish was so disappointing. The magic wasn’t there — both on the court and in the stands.
Urgo has used the preseason rankings as a motivator for the locker room. And the message has gotten through.
“The whole season’s a revenge tour,” graduate guard Japhet Medor told WFUV’s Chaz McAdams. “Everything happens for a reason. Last year was a great moment for us to get better and use all that fuel to have a successful season this year.”
“We’re already at the bottom, now we just gotta prove everybody else wrong,” added sophomore Jahmere Tripp. “We knew how good we were last year, even though we had certain obstacles. Now we just have to prove the same things this year, and just actually get it right.”
There’s reason to buy into a bounceback from the Rams.
Fordham finished dead last in the conference last year in field goal percentage, turned over the ball the most of anyone in the A-10, and had an abysmally low 65.1 free throw percentage. It’s all areas Urgo has harped on throughout the summer and believes will improve.
On top of those areas reverting to the mean, Fordham returns 60% of their scoring last year and four of their top six scorers in Medor, graduate student Abdou Tsimbila and juniors Will Richardson and Josh Rivera.
The Rams bolster their squad with a pair of impact transfers in Johnson III and graduate student Matt Zona, both of whom were in the starting five on Monday.
Zona, a 6-foot-9 forward, comes over to the Bronx after four years in the Atlantic Coast Conference with the University of Notre Dame. Johnson, a 5-foot-11 guard, rejoins the A-10, earning All-Rookie team honors in 2022 with Duquesne University before spending the last two seasons at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Johnson III has wasted no time settling into his new role in what he, Medor and Richardson are donning “a three-headed monster.” After scoring 20 and 23 points, respectively, in Fordham’s exhibition games, Johnson notched a game-high 23 points against St. John’s, heating up in an instant after a slow start.
Despite his smaller stature, Johnson has the explosiveness, quickness and shooting ability to be the offensive catalyst the Rams are looking for.
With Johnson’s help, the Rams battled back to cut the Red Storm lead to two with 7:54 left in the first half. But St. John’s went off on a 16-3 run right after, taking a 40-26 lead into halftime.
They wouldn’t look back. Spearheaded by a 16-point, 10-rebound double-double from Seton Hall University transfer Kadary Richmond and a team-high 17 points from Simeon Wilcher, the Red Storm defeated the Rams by 32, outscoring Fordham 52-34 in the second half.
St. John’s took away the driving lanes on the perimeter for the Rams and made settling into an offensive rhythm nearly impossible. On the offensive end, they found success in the paint against a significantly smaller Fordham squad, netting 40 points in the paint.
Part of that is to be expected from a St. John’s squad picked to finish fifth in the Big East this season, two spots out of the AP Top 25 poll and 13th in the KenPom rankings. Nevertheless, Fordham played sloppier than they’d like. The Rams turned over the ball 19 times, gifting the Red Storm 20 points off of turnovers, and struggling with pressure on inbounds.
Fordham’s road doesn’t get too much easier on Saturday, as the Rams take on another Big East foe in Seton Hall University. It’s a difficult start to the season, but it’s all by design.
“The Atlantic 10, in my opinion, this year is arguably as good as it’s been since the last time they got six teams in [to the NCAA Tournament],” remarked Urgo. “You’ve got high-major kids all over the league this year, so this will be a great test for us the next couple of weeks to prepare ourselves for Atlantic 10 play.”
The A-10 has nine teams in the Top 100 of the NCAA NET rankings to open the season.
“I think you’re gonna see a lot of Atlantic 10 teams beat a lot of ‘so-called high major teams’ in this non-conference,” added Urgo. “Hopefully, we’re one of them.”
Fordham will get that chance this Saturday against a Seton Hall team picked 10th out of 11 in the Big East preseason poll. Tipoff is set for noon from New Jersey.
