Was watching the NBA season opener last night, Nets vs Warriors, Nets look very dangerous, true title contender, and Wiseman is going to be a beast for the Warriors, but also Paschall, who had a huge rookie year and looks even better, shame Fordham can't seem to keep guys like that, hopefully in the future they can. 

Amazing they've recruited some players that good, but never stay 4 years.  Already forgot the high scoring Guard who also transferred out about the same time. Would be nice to see Fordham (and GW) climb out of the A10 gutter



 

Actually it was Severe, good recall, that I was thinking of, I believe he and Paschall arrived about the same time and looked like All A10 1st team caliber talents right away, and then both transfered out quickly
Nick Honor too, jeez.  Chartouny I recall transferring, that guy is a talent too.  
A program just ripped apart by so many transfers.

Someone, one day, will get that program cooking again, I realize no easy task, but just keep some fraction of the NYC talent.  St Johns, has also had a terrible run for decades, the kids just don't want to stay in NYC, but the Right Coaches can do it.  
 

We had no answer for Joel Soriano last year.  Hunter Dean?  You are a hopeful answer.

Imagine we are at the point where Fordham looks at playing us on Christmas Eve as a Christmas present.  

Gwmayhem wrote:

We had no answer for Joel Soriano last year.  Hunter Dean?  You are a hopeful answer.

After watching Soriano more than once last year, you would think JC would tell defenders to force JS to go to his left, something he couldn't or wouldn't do last year. Just overplay Soriano on his right side!!!

As for Hunter Dean, he looks like just another 3 point shooter who stays out of the paint....unlikely to mix it up inside. I wouldn't expect any defense from that guy at all. What about relaying that Soriano info to GW's 6'9" Vanderbilt/ Syracuse transfer??

Regardless, I don't expect GW to win up in the Bronx given how they've played thus far. The Fordham coach knows what he's doing and his players respond to him. But given the competition from other big schools Fordham can't hold their most promising players. The Digger Phelps & Tom Penders era is long gone and the landscape for US college ball in general has radically changed.
 

Last edited by RobSmithoasas (12/25/2020 8:05 pm)

GW0509 wrote:

RobSmithoasas wrote:

The Fordham coach knows what he's doing
 

Not sure I'd call losing almost 75% of your conference games "knowing what you're doing" but he definitely had our number last season.


It was worse with previous Fordham coaches like Wittenburg & Pecora. That program cannot compete with big conference programs outside NYC. St. John's suffers now as well but Fordham most of all and for a long time.  The resources just aren't there and their location in the Bronx doesn't help. 
 

Does this team even have enough players to field a team after the three leaving the program? Good lord

Line opens with Fordham as a (-2) favorite

Last edited by GW0509 (12/29/2020 3:06 pm)

Fordham Rams

Date/Time: Wednesday December 30th @ 1:00 PM ET at Rose Hill Gymnasium in The Bronx, NY.
TV: ESPN+
Ranks: 186th (KenPom), 135th (Bart Torvik), 204th (CBS)
Record Last Year: 9-22, 2-16 (T-13th in A10)
Projected Record (as of now!): 7-11, 7-11 (T-10th in A10)

Coaching Record: Jeff Neubauer, 60-94 in five seasons at Fordham. After a couple of promising seasons early on - Fordham won a combined 30 games in Neubauer's first two years - the Rams have needed three more seasons to win an additional 30 games. As you can predict, that has resulted in three consecutive finishes in the basement of the league. Neubauer is not a bad coach - he won 20+ games in his last three years at Eastern Kentucky and qualified for a postseason tournament in half his years there (including 2 NCAA). Unfortunately for him, he is definitely on the hot seat and is fortunate that COVID likely played a role in Fordham keeping him around another year. While EKU is by no means Belmont or Murray State in the OVC, it's not outlandish to say that Neubauer was better off staying in Richmond (KY). Coaches will say the prospect of coaching in a multi-bid league is part of a reason to leave for an A10 school, but how realistic is it that Fordham will ever get an at-large bid anytime soon? From a geographical standpoint with recruiting, Fordham is perhaps better but beyond that I'm not sure. Neubauer was a four year player at La Salle back when the Explorers were in the MAAC.

All Time Record: 27-9, although Fordham has won the past four meetings by an average of 12 points (before our recent four game losing streak, we won 84% of our games against them). We faced the Rams three times last year, and our contest at their place was arguably our best showing despite terrible outside shooting (5/28 from distance). Even though we played poorly, I believe we had a chance to tie things up at the end but Jamison missed a three from the corner. Armel had 15 points, 6 rebounds, and 2 assists (including an 8-10 performance from the line) while Maceo added 11 points, 3 rebounds, and 4 steals (Jack played all 40 minutes - I may have stirred the pot by mentioning that). Jack and Battle combined to shoot 6-27 from the field.

Offensive Deficiency: 315th (KenPom), 207th (Bart Torvik) -> that seems like a very generous rating from BT.
Defensive Efficiency: 74th (KenPom), 74th (Bart Torvik)
Tempo: 295th (KenPom), 323rd (Bart Torvik)
Returning Minutes: 82.2% (24th in country) -> that should help Fordham a lot this season with little to no practice for them so far. They have had a positive COVID case twice!

Key Returning Players:
Chuba Ohams, Jr. (RS SR; Bronx, NY) 11 ppg, 8.2 rpg, 1.5 apg, 1.2 spg; 47% FG, 14% 3-pt, 42% FT
      Last season against us @ Fordham: DNP (suffered a season-ending knee injury on 1/5/20).

Jalen Cobb (JR; Atlanta, GA) 10.3 ppg, 3.4 rpg, 2.3 apg, 1.8 spg; 34% FG, 31% 3-pt, 74% FT
      Last season against us @ Fordham: 22 points, 6 rebounds, 3 steals (7-13 FG, 5-7 3-pt, 3-3 FT) in 39 minutes.

Tyrone 'Ty' Perry (JR; Boston, MA) 7.5 ppg, 2.5 rpg; 40% FG, 37% 3-pt, 76% FT
      Last season against us @ Fordham: 13 points, 2 assists (5-10 FG, 2-4 3-pt, 1-1 FT) in 33 minutes.

Key Losses:
Antwon Portley (Graduated; Lancaster, TX) 10.4 ppg, 3.7 rpg, 2.3 apg; 37% FG, 31% 3-pt, 74% FT
Erten Gazi (Graduated; Guselyurt, CYP) 8.9 ppg, 3 rpg, 1.1 apg; 45% FG, 37% 3-pt, 63% FT

Comments:
As mentioned earlier, Fordham enters A10 play with no games under their belt, having had two separate COVID incidents during OOC play. While not playing non-conference games probably makes them a bit rusty to begin conference season, based on last year's performance it's hard to say that playing those games would have moved the needle one way or another. The Rams went 6-6 last season OOC, but given their cupcake schedule it didn't prepare them well enough when conference play rolled around (except against us of course - all their wins in 2020 have been against us - no better way to close the year than to end that).

While there seems to be no indication that Fordham improves dramatically this year (apart from the obvious continuity bump), the Rams do return a respectable junior backcourt duo in Jalen Cobb and Tyrone 'Ty' Perry (or as I like to call them Ty Cobb for short). Cobb is set to take over facilitating the offense full-time with Portley departing this offseason. While he is a very inefficient player shooting the ball (Cobb had just two performances shooting north of 50% from the field - both against us), he makes an impact in other areas such as rebounding and doubles as Fordham's best on-ball defender. Perry is far and away the best shooter on the team, canning 37% of his long range attempts last year and pacing the team with 43 makes. His playing time seemed to be very inconsistent over the course of last year. He started the year not playing too much, then saw a lot of minutes in the middle of the year before being relegated to a reserve role once again late in the year. Given his strong shooting on a team that sorely lacks it, I'm guessing it was injury-related because it wasn't like he was in foul trouble. Puerto Rican senior Josh Navarro (formerly Colon) also returns to provide some senior leadership on the team. Expect Navarro to continue his off the bench role backing up Cobb, although he certainly has the ability to start and play alongside the aforementioned duo. Like Cobb, Navarro struggled to shoot the ball with any kind of consistency but is the team's best FT shooter.

Fordham has some nice interior pieces up front to complement Ty Cobb. The return of hometown hero Chuba Ohams Jr. will help the Rams quite a bit although he has struggled with injury issues the past couple years. Ohams is dominant on the glass when healthy and is a threat to put up a double double on a nightly basis. His free throw shooting is lousy though so that is something to consider depending on how close the game is late. Californian Onyinyechi 'Onyi' Eyisi performed well with Ohams out, adding a few buckets underneath each game and faring decently on the glass as a strictly paint-bound presence. They also have Joel Soriano, who showed great promise in his first year of college ball, finishing on a high note with five double figure performances in his final six games of the year. Soriano continued to get more minutes as the season wore on. As the tallest guy on the team at 6'11", expect him to continue to start with the possibility of a breakout sophomore year. His numbers were not too far off from Eyisi.

The remainder of Fordham's rotation consists of senior Ivan Raut and sophomores Chris Austin and Kyle Rose. Watching any of these three shoot the ball is an absolute eyesore, as they combined to shoot 79/270 (29%) from the floor - I wish I was joking. Of the trio, Rose did at least show promise as a decent passer in limited time and played respectable defense, but honestly any of them are at risk of losing playing time unless they shoot the ball better. Perhaps one of Fordham's freshmen could overtake them in the pecking order.

That's it on Fordham, so I'll use the rest to talk about us. Obviously, not a fun time for the coaches, players, or fans, and it seemed almost inevitable that there would be some players leaving the team sooner rather than later. I hate it that JNJ couldn't realize his full potential here, and at the end of the day as a fan I can only wish him, Ace, and Maceo all the best and hope they succeed in their post GW careers. I do feel like there could have been a slightly longer leash in terms of giving JNJ the opportunity to handle the point more, and at the very least draw up some plays for him offensively to get his confidence up, but it's best to continue to look forward (unrelated, but I'm surprised we still haven't hired the third assistant yet, although I guess it's good in a way that we are carefully considering who should fill Nima's spot). I agree that the constant lineup changes and playing time played a role in what went down, and with more depth this season (guys JC is comfortable with playing) it seemed likely that someone was going to be upset with a reduction in playing time. Going 1-6 to begin the year didn't help either.

Continuing to play the transfer market seems like a wise move, perhaps even more so than before. I do understand the importance of balancing out a roster with freshmen that can grow through a program, but with this immediately eligible rule passing, seeing a four year player at one program will be a rarity. While I truly hate that, it will be reality. I believe since the KevLar/JoeMac/Pato class, the only four year players to make it to senior day that began their careers at GW on scholarship are Yuta and Juice (at least from the top of my head). That's crazy to me, but will be the norm moving forward.

The transfers certainly hurt in the short term. Unfortunately, we are now down to nine scholarship players, three of who are freshmen that have barely seen any time (along with Brandon and Miles, the latter who is yet to play college basketball). Knock on wood, we have not dealt with injuries, but any injuries to our main guys could result in a similar performance to last year when we got blown out by superior teams with fewer guys to play. I am glad the freshmen will get to play more (Noel has randomly been absent as of late), and perhaps we will finally see Bishop and Tyler play together more (I have brought up maximizing chemistry, I think it needs to be considered as much as possible given the way this team has played so far this year). Hopefully Hunter gets to take more than one shot from the floor. The loss of JNJ of course hurts a team that was already inept defensively. While I am hopeful that the return of Amir + addition of Ricky will surely improve our ability to defend next season, it's hard to expect any improvement on this end for the rest of the year.

Something that can be improved on D though is effort and energy. The teams that play the most together with the most effort on both ends have the best chance to win the game. Sounds obvious, but feels overlooked. I have been watching the Wizards to begin the year, and it's hard not to draw some comparisons to this GW team. They can score against the best of teams, but their defense also keeps the other team in the game, often times just completely falling apart down the stretch. The Wizards through three quarters = our team in the first half. The fourth quarter Wizards are the second half GW team. Both squads have some clearly talented players (Beal and Westbrook, Bishop for us). Unfortunately, a mix of poor lineup decisions at times and faulty execution down the stretch on both ends of the floor has resulted in our record and the fact that the Wizards haven't yet won a game. I definitely feel for JC and his brother right now.

It has been without a doubt a tough past week. Looking forward to seeing how the team responds to the adversity. I have to think this was a game circled on the staff's calendar as well given what happened last year. How does our frontcourt match up against Fordham's? Can we move the ball effectively to break their zone? Do we come out after halftime with a pulse? Will we ever dive for a loose ball this season? As long as we don't give up 70 to Fordham, I think we should be able to do enough defensively to at the very least stay in the game.

Predicted Score: Fordham 72, GW 63. 17% chance to win (Bart Torvik). ESPN's Basketball Power Index gives us a 58% chance to win (not sure what that is based on). Fordham opens up as a four point home favorite.