Fordham 69, Siena 67: Quotes From Tom Pecora & Ryan Rhoomes

Fordham head coach Tom Pecora's opening statement:
"Well, obviously I thought it was a good college basketball game. They're a good basketball team, obviously, with the great year they had last year. I thought we did a good job playing with great intensity for the majority of the 40 minutes and, you know, one of my assistants, I said, 'who's with me coming up here?' they said 'you could bring anyone,' and I didn't hesitate, I said 'bring Ryan Rhoomes.' He dominated the backboards with 17 rebounds and, you know, he was solid in a lot of ways and that was a key for us, and then when you look down the line and you see a freshman with 18 and another freshman with 18, all three freshmen with 18 points, I mean, that's who we are right now, you know? I thought we did a great job against their pressure, lesson learned after Maryland Eastern Shore and turning the ball over 20 times, you know? To be pressed as much as we were and have 13 turnovers, and a lot of them weren't in the backcourt. You know, Ryan had a few and they were all in the frontcourt and they were off of different plays, they weren't against full court pressure, so I think that was big for us, but look, they're a heck of a basketball team, they're a good team. You know, I need, we need Ryan and Mandell, I thought Mandell Thomas played a real, really good game too. I'm sorry, he had 18 points too as a junior, I mean, we need our veterans just to show the way, lead the way for these freshmen, because we have three freshmen on the floor just about all the time, so you know, we need Ryan and Mandell and Bryan Smith, who's still playing hampered with that ankle, they're really, they're our only three upperclassmen, so they've got to lead the way a little bit, but the freshmen did a really good job, I thought, in executing the game plan and doing all the things we needed to do, so you know, that's where we are right now. We're young, you know? As we were making up the schedule and practice schedule and our game schedule and everything for the year, we were looking at a year where we thought we'd be starting Ryan Rhoomes at the four and Ryan Canty at the five, and Jon (Severe) would be with us at the two. That's not the way it is right now, but so what? You just, you know, you go out, you coach 'em up, they let you do that, they practiced real hard all week, and I'm very proud of them. That's a good win."

On cleaning up from losses to UMass Lowell and Maryland Eastern Shore:
"I think that's just a sign of maturity, and hopefully, you know, like I said, lesson learned there against Eastern Shore, you know, when they went after us with the blitzes and turnovers, we call them blitzes when we double the ball, so I thought we did that, and we threw multiple defenses at them and we played some man, we played some switching man, we played some zone, and the guys responded and they communicated, and Ryan had a lot to do with that because he's out there making the calls. It's almost like a center in football calling the blocking scheme on the line, he's the one relaying the calls a lot to the young guys because their heads are spinning sometimes, you know? I've got three freshman point guards, and they're not even thinking about looking at the bench when there's a...I'm screaming 'Look! Look! Somebody give him a call!' I'm doing a lot of that through him, but yeah, I think we did clean a lot of it up. What I put on the board was 41 percent from the field, it's the lowest we've held an opponent this season, I believe, only 13 turnovers and +4 on the backboards, and that's why we won the basketball game."

On Eric Paschall and his game-winning block of Siena's Brett Bisping:
"Yeah, it sure did, I want to see it on tape, but I mean, look: He's a big-time athlete and he's got a great future, and we've got to get him to guard, you know? As a freshman, he's still learning how to do that, but I love the fact that he has no fear and he's not worried about fouling somebody, you know, and he goes up and he can make a play like that, and that was big. And he was a little tentative when he came back in with four fouls, but we needed him on the floor, you know? We never needed to lose that lead, and I was holding and holding and holding to get him back on, but he obviously has got a chance to be a special one."

Ryan Rhoomes on his 17 rebounds:
"Not really. This year, Coach wanted me to go out and make up for Canty not being around, so I knew I had to step up on the boards, but no, I think I did pretty good rebounding, averaging 10 right now, 11 right now, so it's not really about the team, it's about me wanting to get a win, big, more than anything. I knew I had to step up, and I did tonight."

Pecora on playing with a lead:
"That's another thing, you know? We're teaching them time and score. Even at the half, Christian (Sengfelder) is inbounding the ball, a freshman, and I'm like 'son, one second, throw it to the other end, you know? Oh yeah, Coach.' He means well, and it's a learning process, you know, and then at the end, giving the foul when you're up three, you know, I think I told you this last year, there's a guy who did a study on it, and he was sending me stats on it constantly, he was monitoring every college game, and he converted me really, because I had almost lost two games doing it years ago at Hofstra. At seven seconds or less, if you start doing that in the course of a game, you're going to win 97 percent of the time, so it's something that we practice and that we do, so, but it was different. I wanted to go into the half up, you know? I was worried about squandering the lead, and that's why we slowed the ball down a little bit, I wanted to make sure we went into the half up five, just so we felt good about that."

On Siena's Marquis Wright and his 31 points:
"He's a good little player, man. You know, we've played them the last few years, obviously, and he's a tough little son of a gun, and he, you know, I thought we did a good job making sure (Ryan) Oliver and (Rob) Poole didn't get good looks. We didn't help off them much, so it really became a game of 3-on-3, you know, and he had that much space, and he was real good. He was real good at getting into the lane and scoring the basketball. At the end, we went up on him and just face-guarded him to try to keep the ball out of his hands, but he's a fine player, he's a very good player."

On veteran leadership being the difference tonight:
"Definitely, and Mandell too. Mandell goes and gets 18, and you know, and then you have the other two freshmen step up, so, yeah, our veterans played along with the freshmen, and I think that allows the freshmen to rise, but I thought that they were fearless, the freshmen, as were the veterans. I expect that from our veterans. I want Mandell to play at a higher level. He's got more ability in his pinkie, he does some things in practice that we just go 'Damn!' We need that all the time, you know, and we've got to get him doing it on a high level as Ryan did, and that takes pressure off the freshmen and allows them to play a little bit."