By DAN GARTLAND
Branded Frazier’s eyes were glassy when he addressed the media following his team’s loss to Dayton in the second round of the Atlantic 10 Tournament — his final college game. His Rams fell far behind in the first half, but Fordham’s senior point guard willed his team back into it. Frazier finished with 30 points and spearheaded a comeback that saw a 19-point deficit cut to as few as five.
“I didn’t want to go out, but it was good to be home,” said Frazier, who played his high school basketball about a half mile from the site of Thursday’s game. “Growing up down the block, I just felt comfortable playing and had a lot of friends and family here. It’s good to have 30 points to end your career, but to have a loss — I’d take one point to have a win.”
“We started the game like we had run out of gas and we were tired from last night,” Fordham head coach Tom Pecora said. “Once we convinced them that that wasn’t the case, in the second half, we played with greater energy and we some of the plays we’re capable of making. I think they just wore us down.”
As the clock wore down and Pecora realized the season was over, he called timeout and told his team he wanted to take Frazier out of the game before the clock hit zero. Twice after that timeout, Bryan Smith hugged Frazier on the court. Then, with 14 seconds left, Chris Whitehead went to the scorer’s table and checked in for Frazier. The crowd rose to its feet and applauded him. When he got to the bench, he hugged every member of the Fordham sideline.
“To go out, to have everyone standing for me and clapping, even people that weren’t Fordham fans, meant a lot to me,” Frazier said. “And to go down and hug every single person that I went to battle with every game is special.”
