By DAN GARTLAND
EXECUTIVE SPORTS EDITOR
Jon Severe lit up the Red Flash for 28 points, a Fordham freshman record. (Photo by Drew DiPane/The Ram)
Jon Severe announced his arrival in a big way on Friday night, lighting up the visiting St. Francis Red Flash for 28 points in Fordham’s 87-67 victory. In his collegiate debut, the freshman guard made nine of 15 shots, including an astounding seven of ten three-pointers.
“In the exhibition I had a bad shooting night, so I’ve just been getting more shots up with Coach [John] Morton, just trying to have a good shooting performance,” Severe said.
Fordham head coach Tom Pecora was optimistic that this will not be Severe’s last offensive outburst.
“Every night is not going to be like this, but I hope that many are,” he said.
Severe was not the only Fordham player to have a strong night offensively. Each of the four guards who started the game for the Rams scored in double figures: Sophomore Mandell Thomas had 15 points, junior Bryan Smith added 18 and senior Branden Frazier netted 10.
“The advantage of playing the way we’re playing is that we have four guys on the floor that can make shots,” Pecora said.
Smith struggled at the end of last season, only cracking double figures once in his final 12 games. On Friday night, though, he seemed to have found his shooting stroke.
“Bryan’s an exceptional shooter,” Pecora said. “He’s just got to get shot discipline and keep his mechanics the same. I mean, he scored 67 in a high school game. I’ve recruited guys that couldn’t score 67 if you left them in the gym alone at night.”
Smith credited Pecora’s encouragement with helping him gain confidence.
“Coach always has a lot of faith in me,” Smith said. “Even if I’m not having a good shooting game, Coach always tells me to keep shooting the ball.”
Frazier, the team’s second-leading scorer last year, was more of a facilitator on Friday night. He had four assists and no turnovers.
“I think he did a great job of letting guys run out their streaks,” Pecora said of Frazier. “When guys were hot, he continued to get [them] the ball. When Bryan made a couple shots, he went back to him. That’s what good point guards do. If a guy’s got it going, let’s let him run the streak out and see how many in a row he can make.”
Pecora also credited Smith and Frazier with providing guidance to the inexperienced Severe.
“[Severe is] getting great support and leadership from Bryan, from Branden,” he said. “He’s got a lot of growing up to do, but that’s typical of every freshman.”
The success of Fordham’s guards was due in large part to St. Francis’ lack of size. The Red Flash had only one player taller than 6-foot-7. Pecora was able to go with a four-guard lineup and not worry too much about being beat on the interior.
The play of Fordham’s three forwards (Ryan Rhoomes, Travion Leonard and Ryan Canty) will be a concern moving forward. The trio combined for only 10 points and committed 12 personal fouls.
“I expect more consistency, to be quite honest,” Pecora said of the forward play. “I expect them to be better defenders, I expect them to rebound the ball better and I expect them to stay out of foul trouble; they’re out there just whacking at people.”
Pecora did offer an explanation for the large number of fouls, though.
“A lot of them were because of dribble penetration, and they were forced to step up and make plays,” Pecora said. “So I think if we get better at containing the basketball, some of these foul trouble issues with the bigs will go away.”
But Pecora expects that if his guards continue to play well, it will make things easier for the big men.
“Bryan scores inside and he scores outside,” he said. “It’s a tough matchup for big people to come chase him out on the perimeter. Obviously with Jon’s ability to shoot the ball, with Bryan’s, with Branden’s and with Mandell’s, it’s going to stretch defenses, and as our bigs get better, they’re going to get more scoring opportunities as well.”
Fordham’s second game of the year came against No. 9 Syracuse on Tuesday night. The Orange dominated the Rams, winning 89-74.
Syracuse’s suffocating zone defense smothered Fordham all night long, forcing the Rams to settle for deep threes.
The Orange also held a tremendous size advantage and won the rebound battle 49-27.
There were positives, though. Frazier and Severe both had strong games.
Frazier had a career-high 33 points on 9-14 shooting and Severe added 19 points.
Fordham returns to action this Friday night at home against Lehigh.
