Last season. St. Francis College played its first nine games on the road in a campaign that ultimately ended with the Terriers hosting a Northeast Conference tournament game and head coach Glenn Braica receiving NEC Coach of the Year honors. Fordham University does not have as daunting a task as St. Francis did last year, but the Rams will have the same opportunity to show the nation their dynamic offense and stifling defense by playing all but three of their nonconference games away from Rose Hill Gym in the third year of the Tom Pecora era.
Fordham tips off the 2012-13 season on November 9th by returning the favor with Texas State, who played at Rose Hill last season. It will be the Rams' first trip to the Lone Star State since facing Texas A&M in 2006. From there, Fordham will head to Pittsburgh to take part in the preliminary rounds of the Preseason NIT. Contingent upon what happens at the Petersen Center, the Rams could either play a consolation round at a site to be determined or advance to the semifinals at Madison Square Garden during Thanksgiving week.
Fordham's home opener for the 111th season in program history takes place on November 29th, and it could not be a bigger game. Fordham will host Manhattan in the annual "Battle of the Bronx," where the Rams will look to avenge a 34-point loss to Steve Masiello's Jaspers last December at Draddy Gym. The 104th meeting between Fordham and Manhattan makes the Jaspers Fordham's most frequently played opponent. The homecoming will be brief, however; as the Rams hit the road again for a return match with Harvard, who Fordham resoundingly defeated at Rose Hill last year when Tommy Amaker's Crimson were a Top 25 team, and Lehigh on December 4th, where the Rams will face do-it-all guard C.J. McCollum, who was instrumental in guiding the Mountain Hawks to an upset of Duke in the NCAA Tournament.
Fordham returns to New York four days later for a matchup with St. John's in the Holiday Festival at Madison Square Garden, which has now become an annual tradition. Last year, the Rams played a Red Storm team with just six players on its roster tough, taking their intra-city rival down to the wire before ultimately falling by the final of 56-50. Fordham did defeat the Red Storm 84-81 in 2010 in what remains one of the greatest games played at Rose Hill in recent memory, with the image of Rams fans rushing the court still easily ingrained in the minds of anyone intimately acquainted with the program.
From there, the Rams will help christen the Barclays Center on December 15th, when they face Princeton in a tripleheader as part of the Brooklyn Winter Hoops Festival. Matchups between St. Francis and St. John's, as well as Michigan and West Virginia, are also on the card. The Rams will next head to Gampel Pavilion for a meeting with Jim Calhoun and Connecticut on the 21st of December before returning to Rose Hill to meet Siena two days later in what will be Fordham's final game before the Christmas holiday.
Fordham gets a chance to make up the matchup with Georgia Tech that was canceled two years ago by heading to Atlanta to face Brian Gregory's Ramblin' Wreck on December 29th, with the Rams' final game of 2012 taking place on New Year's Eve when Monmouth University and second-year coach King Rice make their way to Rose Hill. The Rams will open 2013 with their final nonconference game taking place on January 4th in Oxford, Mississippi against Andy Kennedy and Ole Miss.
Fordham's Atlantic 10 schedule will be released later this summer, and it is headlined by a home-and-home series with Saint Joseph's University; as well as road trips to Xavier and A-10 newcomer Virginia Commonwealth, and a home game against Brad Stevens and Butler. A Daly Dose Of Hoops will keep you updated on all things Fordham throughout the season, so be sure to check back with us for breaking news concerning Tom Pecora and the Rams.
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