The Fordham Rams made waves to begin the 2022-23 season, beginning the season on a 12-1 run. The Rams didn’t miss a beat under the guidance of first-year head coach Keith Urgo, who served as assistant coach under Kyle Neptune before the latter cut bait for Villanova. Through Christmas Day, their only loss was on the road to a then No. 10 ranked Arkansas Razorbacks team in their second game of the season. After that, the Rams kicked off an 11 game win streak.
Super senior Darius Quisenberry, who transferred from Youngstown State ahead of the 2021 season, leads the Rams in scoring with 16.8 points per game, and is one of their best passers, racking up 66 assists on the season compared to just 32 turnovers. Quisenberry is a gambler, his shooting percentage hurt by the fact that more than half the shots he takes are from beyond the arc: but when he’s on, the Rams are difficult to stop.
The Season So Far: Conference Play
The shift to conference play stymied Fordham, who began A-10 play with a 1-3 record, starting with a loss to bottom-dwelling Davidson College—with a 3-6 conference record, the Wildcats are thirteenth—where the Rams forgot how to shoot, making just 25.4% of shots from the field…including an abysmal 9.7% clip from beyond the arc.
The Rams came back down to earth following the loss and entered a mini-skid, dropping two of their next three games.
They’ve recovered to go 4-0 in the conference since then, but oddsmakers don’t like the Rams’ chances. New York’s FanDuel Sportsbook gives them the fifth-best odds to claim the A-10 title this year, which doesn’t sound bad at face value: those odds are +20000, however, meaning they have a 200-to-1 chance at winning their first (and only) conference title since joining in 1995, whether as regular season champions or by winning in the A-10 tournament: played at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, Fordham has an advantage as the de facto home team. It’s difficult for mid-majors to make the NCAA Tournament without a conference title to secure an automatic bid, and Fordham hasn’t participated in March Madness since 1992.
Metrics like the NET rankings and KenPom ratings have the Rams listed as No. 132 and No. 149, respectively, so they aren’t likely to impress the selection committee enough to earn an at-large bid in March.
While the Rams are a long shot to make their fifth NCAA Tournament appearance in program history, tonight marks a potential turning point for their season.
The Season to Come: A Look at Fordham’s Chances
The Rams will play host to the Saint Louis Billikens tonight, in what could be a massive swing in Fordham’s fortunes. SLU paces the conference with a 7-1 record, and the Rams are just two games back: a massive home win could be the spark Fordham needs with barely a month left in the regular season. FanDuel has the spread at -4.5, but even on the road the Billikens are set as strong favorites (-178) in what is expected to be a high scoring game: the over/under rests at 146.5.
Despite the lopsided line, Fordham actually has a better record on the season than the Billikens: powered by their 11 game winning streak in out of conference play, the Rams’ 17-4 mark is the best in the conference.
With ten conference games left in the season, time is running out for Fordham to jump SLU in the rankings. Their schedule is fairly easy from here on out, with seven of those remaining games against teams in the bottom half of the conference, while the teams ahead of the Rams all play each other several times, putting Fordham in an excellent position to strike.
