Fordham’s resurgence, from its energetic head coach to its boisterous student section, is indeed real

Keith Urgo (top) has done improbable at Fordham, turning Rams into hungry contender with upside where entire team (bottom) is embracing of its newfound support during program’s best season since 1991. (Photos by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops) 

NEW YORK — Mention Fordham basketball to someone, and for most of the last three decades, you would likely be met with derision rather than a serious conversation.

Since the Rams’ last NCAA Tournament appearance in 1992, the punchlines have only grown in number. Whether Fordham should have left the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, how grossly miscast Bob Hill was in four years at the helm following an NBA career, the numerous players to transfer out under Tom Pecora, or Jeff Neubauer’s reign of error, there was always something to be said about the moribund basketball program in the Bronx, most times unflattering.

Enter Keith Urgo.

At 42 years old, Urgo is a firebrand in this, his first head coaching opportunity at any level. The son of a two-time Fordham alumnus and former two-sport student-athlete was tapped last April by athletic director Ed Kull to replace Kyle Neptune after the latter shockingly left Rose Hill after one season, a .500 campaign at 16-16, to be Jay Wright’s handpicked successor at Villanova after Wright suddenly retired following the Wildcats’ appearance in the Final Four. Urgo, a former Wright disciple himself who later spent nearly a decade with Pat Chambers at Penn State, now had his chance to prove himself worthy of a Division I head coaching job after the bulk of the Fordham roster openly pitched for him to be the man. And what he has done borders on miraculous, and no, this is not hyperbole. 

A powder keg of unbridled energy who walks up and down the bench before the opening tip and embraces every member of the team from starting point guard to head manager to video coordinator, then celebrates with a reinvigorated and suddenly packed-to-the-gills student section after wins, Urgo has taken the foundation that Neptune laid last season and built it to a level few imagined possible given Fordham's history in the Atlantic 10 Conference, breathing new life in a program many declared dead on arrival years before he even got into college athletics and overseeing the trickle down of his own infectious enthusiasm to every part of the university at which he is employed. Now standing 21-5 on the season, and 9-4 in A-10 play after Wednesday's thorough and emphatic dismantling of St. Bonaventure, the Rams’ win total is the highest it has been since the 1990-91 team that featured two future college coaches (Jean Prioleau and Mike Rice) won 25 games, and counts as just the eighth 20-win season in 119 years of Fordham basketball, which has existed with just two interruptions since 1902.

It is one thing to say something can be done, and another to actually do it and put those words into practice. Urgo is living proof.

“I think we’ve flipped that script,” he proudly declared Wednesday after defeating St. Bonaventure. “Every coach that’s come in here, that’s been here for years, has said that this is something different. We credit the board of trustees, President (Tania) Tetlow, Ed Kull, and all the folks that are now pushing for men’s basketball to become something special, and it goes hand in hand with the fans.”

“He doesn’t let up,” junior guard Antrell Charlton said of his head coach. “Every single day, he comes in and he’s probably got the most energy out of everybody. Every single day, no matter if we had a long trip back, the next day in practice, Urgo’s bringing all the energy and it’s contagious. You don’t have a choice, you gotta match his energy. You have to. That’s something that’s been very helpful.”

And by extension, Urgo’s Energizer bunny work ethic is a byproduct of the vigor with which Kull, who spearheaded a majority of fundraising efforts at St. John’s before heading over the Whitestone Bridge to lead an athletic department for the first time, approaches his own job. It takes a village, as has often been said when trying to build something either nonexistent or perennially dormant, and the framework was established before finding the pieces to execute the vision. So how is it that the stars have aligned so cosmically, so soon?

“We’ve got great kids in this program that are working as hard as anybody I’ve ever been around,” Urgo gushed. “This team is as connected as anybody I’ve ever been around, and as a result, you’re using eight, nine, 10-11 guys, and everybody that goes in — you walk up and down the sideline — all these guys are cheering for each other. That’s rare in sports to have a team that’s that connected, that’s rooting for each other every single opportunity. And that’s an extra boost for guys like Zach Riley and Romad Dean. They’re willing to fly around because they don’t want to let these guys down. It’s something really special that these guys have created.”

“It’s a community at large right now, and everybody’s pumped about it. We’re moving in the right direction. It’s about hiring the right staff, which fortunately, Coach Neptune did a great job of hiring the right people and finding the right student-athletes to fit what Fordham is, not just the basketball program, but the entire community. And we got fortunate. We hit lightning in a bottle with guys like Antrell Charlton and Darius Quisenberry because they’re not just basketball players. They care about the institution, they love wearing the name on the front of the jersey, and as a result, it permeates onto the court. It’s just kind of everything all pieced together, but you need the right people in place and fortunately right now, it feels like we’ve got that.”

Slowly but surely, people outside the locker room have taken note. In a large market like New York, where the Rangers and Knicks dominate the headlines in February after the Giants and Jets have wrapped up, but before the Yankees and Mets begin spring training, college sports tend to get lost in the shuffle, and casual fans come out of the woodwork mainly when St. John’s plays its once-every-four-or-five-years trick of being an NCAA Tournament-caliber team. Fordham’s renewed engagement has come most notably from its raucous and fired-up student section, the front row of which Urgo dubbed “the shirtless herd” in honor of its bare-chested, full-throated support of the Rams. (Wednesday night saw the first row spell out “Urgonomics” on their painted chests.)

“I love it,” point guard Darius Quisenberry, Fordham’s leading scorer, said of the student section. “Every time you hit a shot, they go crazy. You just want to hit that shot so they can get into it. We love to have them here, we love the support.”

But even Fordham students were slow to come around, their full effect not truly realized until a January 28 defeat of George Washington where the Rams’ 85 points were, and still remain, a high-water mark in A-10 play. Since then, though, the bleachers behind the basket on the visiting bench side have been full, amplifying the atmosphere and contributing to an environment not seen at Rose Hill since Brad Stevens brought Butler there 10 years ago in the Bulldogs’ lone season as an A-10 member.

“It’s been like this since the students got back,” deputy athletic director Charlie Elwood remarked with regard to the crowd factor since the spring semester started.

“Early in the season, we didn’t have a student body like that,” Charlton chimed in. “The energy, like Urgo says, is a big difference. When they come and show us love, we obviously like to go over there and show love. Sometimes we even have to catch ourselves getting too pumped up with the crowd. We love it. We feel like they’re a part of us and we’re a part of them.”

Urgo, who in the aftermath of Wednesday’s victory again led the charge toward the new lifeblood of the fan base before motioning to his players to come join him in a mob scene on the baseline that has now become commonplace in recent weeks, concurred.

“We’re incredibly blessed,” he reiterated. “We talked about it in the locker room, there’s not many people that get to do what we get to do across the country and in the world. They bring so much energy that this is kind of like a dream come true. You want to play in front of a raucous crowd. This is why you work so hard, why you get so many shots up on a daily basis, and to see that the fans are engaged and they’re enjoying it, we just appreciate it.” 

“I want to make sure that they know that we’re thankful for them and we want them to keep coming back. They’ve got to understand how much of a difference they make. It’s night and day compared to when they’re not here as opposed to when they are. They make an incredible difference.”

With two weeks remaining in the regular season, Fordham has a realistic chance to not only secure a top four finish in the A-10 standings, which would reward the Rams with a double bye into the quarterfinals, but also a conference championship and automatic invite to the National Invitation Tournament should they win the regular season. Currently, Fordham sits one game behind league-leader VCU, coincidentally the next opponent on the schedule Saturday in Richmond. Should the momentum continue on, the next stop in what has been a dream season to date would be Barclays Center, home of the A-10 tournament and a possible untapped homecourt advantage never seen on such a stage, almost resembling the support Saint Peter’s had in Philadelphia last March when the Peacocks defeated Purdue to become the first No. 15 seed to advance to a regional final. There may not be as much at stake for Fordham, but Urgo hinted at the potential of what the conference tournament could bring if the Rams were to clear the first obstacle standing in their way, even if he said it would be irrelevant if the coach carrying his team sputtered into a pumpkin down the stretch.

“Brooklyn’s going to be amazing,” Urgo admitted. “But it doesn’t mean anything unless we continue to get better. Being in New York and with the momentum that we have, hopefully we bring Rose Thrill to the Barclays Center. Why not? There should be buses and buses of people, because that’s what these guys deserve. They put so much time, so much energy into this place, into this program that I’d really like to see guys like Darius and Khalid Moore go out with a bang. And a bang means loads of Fordham alums. There’s plenty of them out there in the tri-state area, there’s not one that shouldn’t be there if they can be.”

Still, the skepticism has lingered in some circles. And if the season ended today, Urgo is not the type to be content and rest on his laurels. For the first time in what seems like ages, Fordham has a coach with a vision and an actual plan to build a consistent winner.

“You can’t do it without players,” he said. “It has nothing to do with the coaches. Players make plays, and Jay Wright taught us that. These guys go out there, they’re the ones — blood, sweat and tears — every single day. We demand a ridiculous amount of these kids, and they’ve stepped up in a great way. I think we have some tremendous young men in this program that are young, just getting better every day, that are going to continue to carry the torch that these guys have lit.”

“We’re enjoying the ride they’ve created, but we said it when we took the job. This isn’t something we’re trying to do for one year. We’re trying to build something that’s sustainable for years to come, and I just don’t see why that can’t be possible. You see the energy that’s in this building, I just don’t understand why it can’t continue to happen. Hopefully I never find out why it can’t happen, because I really feel like this isn’t just a one-hit wonder. We’re trying to create something really sustainable.”