Fordham Men’s Basketball continued their quest to Atlantic 10 glory on the road against the University of Richmond, but fell short in extending their five-game win streak against the Spiders.

Certainly earning the right to be drinking the Kool-Aid, Fordham walked into the Robins Center with extreme confidence under their belt. They had just won three in a row on the road and beat two of the better teams in conference at home: Saint Louis University and George Washington University. 

Onward to Richmond, V.A. at the Robins Center against the longest tenured head coach in the A-10, Chris Mooney, whose all time record against the Rams was 18-5 heading into the matchup on Sunday. 

The defending A-10 champions are suffering from a severe hangover since their magical run in March 2022. Mooney lost two 2,000-point scorers, one of whom was Jacob Gilyard, who graduated as the A-10’s leader in career steals and assists. The other was Grant Golden, who is the only Spider in history to record 2,000 points and 1,000 or more rebounds.

The only returnees from last year’s championship team is Tyler Burton, someone who is in contention for A-10 player of the year averaging 19 points and 7.7 rebounds per game. Alongside Burton is Andre Gustavson and Matt Grace as the only true players who came back.

The overhaul from the portal has led Richmond to a pedestrian season, going into the game on a four-game skid contrary to the Rams’ five-game run. 

Fordham touched down at the Robins Center looking to handle business as usual and started going back and forth with the Spiders in the opening minutes. The Rams went up by as many as eight in the first half, but Richmond played Fordham’s game by getting to the free throw line to keep the Spiders in range.

The Rams wrapped up the first half with a steal and dunk from freshman Will Richardson, and free throws from graduate student Darius Quisenberry. At the halftime break, Fordham held a 35-29 lead, 20 minutes away from six in a row.

The second half saw Richmond go guns blazing and cut the lead down to one, until Fordham sent their lead back up to 47-36 at the 12-minute mark. 

Playing a full 40 minutes of basketball is hard on the road. The Rams unfortunately played only 30 minutes of basketball and collapsed in the final 10, as Richmond utilized a 13-1 run to bring the scoreboard back in their favor and were able to connect on free throws down the stretch.

Two Spiders combined for 20 attempted free throws, more than the entire Fordham team took the whole game. Richmond as a whole took 28 free throws and nailed 22 of them, while Fordham took only 18 and hit 12. Some of those misses were on the front ends of one-and-one situations which could have been avoided.

Three-point shooting has been a common point of emphasis all season long. Fordham has been able to win games with poor shooting performances but couldn’t shake the hit this game. 4-18 will not cut it to win games on the road, especially when you win the rebounding battle and grab nine offensive boards against a much lesser team in terms of physicality. 

Junior center Abdou Tsimbila was second on the team in points with 10, adding five rebounds in one of his better games of the conference slate. Graduate student Darius Quisenberry had one of those nights again, shooting 1-9 from the field with only five points. Fourth year Kyle Rose shot the ball well for the first time in awhile, going 3-6 from three for nine points. 

Khalid Moore led the way with 12 points, and eight points each came from Richardson and senior Rostik Noyvitskyi. But the offensive output was subpar considering Fordham’s last five games. 

The Rams will have a chance to snag a win on Wednesday when they return home for a matchup with the University of Massachusetts Minutemen; a quick pit stop before heading on the road again.