Opulent sunlight filtered through the windows at one end of Rose Hill Gym in the Bronx on Wednesday, a fitting picture after one of the brightest moments the Fordham men’s basketball team had experienced in decades.
Bill Kostroun/Associated Press
Fordham's players celebrated their first victory over a ranked opponent since 1978.
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Bill Kostroun/Associated Press
Bryan Smith (24) and host Fordham beat No. 22 Harvard on Tuesday.
On Tuesday night, Fordham beat No. 22 Harvard, 60-54, the Rams’ first victory over a ranked opponent since 1978.
Less than 24 hours later, Coach Tom Pecora was playing down the significance of the achievement, even though a victory over a ranked team seemed like an impossibility when he arrived from Hofstra last season, taking over a team that had won three games in 2008-9 and two in 2009-10.
“They were damaged goods,” Pecora said. “Emotionally, the kids on the team, the fans, people on campus, they had all been through a tough stretch, but we put that behind us.”
Fordham improved to 7-21 in Pecora’s first season, but still stumbled through a 17-game losing streak. A poor start this season that included losses to Northwood (Fla.), Lehigh and Monmouth may have made some worry that the Rams were regressing after the advancements made last season.
Then, as winter break descended upon Fordham’s Gothic campus, a team that features seven freshmen and four sophomores began to jell. The win over Harvard was the Rams’ third in a row, following defeats of Texas State and Georgia Tech. All at home in their little slice of New York basketball history.
Rose Hill Gym, with a capacity of 3,470, opened in 1925 and is the oldest gymnasium still being used by a Division I team. And, perhaps fitting for a team that plays in one of New York’s basketball landmarks, Pecora has assembled a squad that relies heavily on talent from the tri-state area.
Eight of the 15 players on the Rams’ roster are from New York City. Against Harvard, the starting lineup featured four players from Brooklyn and one — Chris Gaston, the team’s leading scorer — from Union City, N.J.
“That’s the only way I’ve ever done it,” Pecora said. “I’m New York, born and bred. Born in Brooklyn, raised in Queens. Live on Long Island, coach in the Bronx. Hang out in Manhattan, drive through Staten Island.”
Pecora once moved away from New York in the early 1990s, but quickly returned.
“I left for 18 months and it was the worst 18 months of my life,” he said of stints as an assistant at Nevada-Las Vegas and Loyola Marymount.
“The coaches I’m dealing with in the tri-state area,” he said, “I’ve either known them since childhood, they’re my peers — guys I came up through the ranks with and coached and played with — or they’re young guys now that I’ve coached or coached against.”
He added: “The local high school coaches and the local club coaches convinced me that this is a good job. They were part of the equation.”
While Pecora hopes to expand the program’s recruiting reach, he knows that plucking players out of the city’s high schools is still a key if Fordham (7-6) wants to compete in the Atlantic 10.
“We can still get New York guards,” he said. “I’ll still hang my hat on that.”
The university is also investing in the program. Facilities have been upgraded or renovated (or the plans are in the works), including improvements to the weight room and modernizing the offices.
“Before Tom Pecora arrived, we had good coaches,” the university’s athletic director, Frank McLaughlin, said. “But I’m not sure we had the institutional commitment — financial, etc. — to be really successful in the best non-B.C.S. league in the country.”
A former Fordham basketball player, McLaughlin was the captain of the 1969 team that went to the National Invitation Tournament and is pictured with other Fordham basketball luminaries in the hallway that leads to refurbished athletic offices. All three of his daughters graduated from the university.
“When I played here in the late ’60s, we were very successful and we could compete against anybody on a national level,” he said. “Then, I think, when the Big East was formed, that hurt Fordham."
McLaughlin was drafted by the Knicks after he graduated from Fordham and eventually went on to coach Harvard for eight years. Even with that connection, and the fact that Tuesday night’s victory stopped a 54-game losing streak against ranked teams, Pecora did not want to overstate the win’s importance.
“We met before practice today and I said, ‘Hey, guys, I’m not satisfied and you better not be,’ ” he said. “ ‘Don’t forget I gave you the poll at the beginning of the year and they picked us last in the Atlantic 10.’ ”
After practice Wednesday, Pecora took his team to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. The Rams were on their way to play Massachusetts on Thursday, when they will try to show that they can win on the road, something they have done just three times since 2009.
Back inside Rose Hill, a banner hung from the ceiling with the words: “New York is my Campus. Fordham is my School.” Sunlight bounced off the fabric, and it appeared that the future might be looking brighter for Fordham, too.
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