Fordham Basketball

Jon Severe is a winner.

As a senior in high school, he led Christ the King to the Catholic High School Athletic Association Brooklyn/Queens regular season and postseason titles, the CHSAA Class AA intersectional championship and the New York State Federation Class AA championship.

After averaging 21.6 points per game, Severe was named the 2013 New York State Mr. Basketball, was the New York Post's and New York Daily News' Player of the Year and was a 2013 Parade All-American.

Fordham came after him hard. When Severe signed with the Rams, Joe Arbitello, his high school coach, said he was “the biggest recruit Fordham has had in the last 20 years,” before adding, “he can turn the whole program around.”

That hasn’t happened yet.

Severe’s freshman season was a far cry from his high school days. Instead of playing for championships, Severe found himself on a team fighting to stay in games.

“It was difficult, but it was a learning experience,” Severe said earlier this week. “I never dealt with a year like that. I’m happy it happened now so I can try to change [things]."

Change does appear to be in the air at Rose Hill and, to no one’s surprise, Severe is front and center.

After winning just 10 games in 2013-14, Fordham looks poised to make a run next season.

Not only will Severe have a year under his belt, but there will be more talent around him. Eric Paschall, Nemanja Zarkovic and Christian Sengfelder are recent recruits who will be on the floor next season. Antwoine Anderson and Manny Suarez, who were ineligible last year, will be in the mix. Additionally, Fordham isn’t finished. The Rams still have scholarships available.

“I’m excited,” Severe said. “We have talent here. Last year we didn’t have much talent. You have to have talent to win."

“We’re putting the pieces together to try to [turn] this program around.”

It’s early, but Severe already can see some of those pieces coming together at Fordham's summer workouts.

“The mindset is different,” he said. “Everybody’s playing harder and competing.”

By his own admission, Severe struggled at times last season. The numbers were good. He averaged 17.3 points per game, was named to the Atlantic 10’s All-Rookie Team and was the 2014 Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association Rookie of the Year.

It wasn't all smooth sailing, however. Severe had some difficulties with his shot (.331 field-goal percentage) and with shot selection. He had good nights, but as you might expect with a freshman, there were also nights when he didn’t have it.

“I think I had an up-and-down season,” Severe said. “It could have been better."

“Some games I had good games and I came back having two bad games. I want to [be] more consistent.”

Still, not much has changed since his days playing for Christ the King. The talent is still there. Severe should only get better with more experience and better players around him.

While it won’t all be on him, Fordham needs Severe to be one of its pillars for the next few years.

“It takes more than one person to win a game,” he said. “I just try to show by example and try to [bring] everyone along so we can [turn] this thing around.”

Quotations in this article were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.

Charles Costello covers the Fordham Rams for Bleacher Report.

Twitter: @CFCostello.

Eric Paschall has arrived.

Fordham's prized recruit is on the Rose Hill campus and has begun participating in the Rams' summer workouts, preparing for what is a highly anticipated freshman season.

At Fordham's workout on Tuesday, just days into his college career, Paschall seemed to fit right in. 

"Everything's going well," he said. "The coaches are doing a great job preparing us for the season.

"I really like it here. I think we have great chemistry already. I think we'll have a successful season."

Paschall, a native of Dobbs Ferry, New York, spent his senior season of high school at Connecticut's St. Thomas More Prep. He said that transferring to the New England school helped prepare him for college.  

"Coming from St. Thomas More, transferring for my senior year, it helped me a lot," he said. "I don't think coming from Dobbs Ferry would have helped me as much. Playing in that league really helped me prepare for this season."

Paschall was named the New England Prep Player of the Year last season, quite an accomplishment for a senior.

Fordham head coach Tom Pecora has pointed out that, typically, the award has gone to post-grad players, saying "that puts [Paschall] in rarefied air."

Pecora has also said he expects Paschall, who is 6'6" with incredible athleticism and talent, to be a starter next season and believes his transition to the college game will be a smooth one.

"Coming from prep school, I'm kind of ready for it," Paschall said, echoing his coach's sentiments.

Paschall certainly made a name for himself prior to his time at St. Thomas More. In his junior season at Dobbs Ferry High School, he averaged 26.0 points, 11.2 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game.

The awards—Class B Player of the Year and Westchester County's Mr. Basketball—came pouring in.

As a senior, it only got better for Paschall.

"I accomplished way more than I thought [I would]," he said about his senior season. "I didn't think I was going to win the NEPSAC (New England Preparatory School Athletic Council) Player of the Year [award].

"I just worked hard during the season, did what I had to, listened to my coaches and magically it happened. That was a great honor."

Paschall's next challenge will be his biggest. For 19 years, Fordham has struggled in the Atlantic 10, a conference that continues to get better.

It's not all on his shoulders, but Paschall understands the expectations. He knows that for Fordham to start winning more games, he'll have to be every bit the player scouts and coaches say he is.

Still, this is a young man who's grounded, and that's been evident in everything he's said and done since he made the announcement a year-and-a-half ago that he'd be taking his talents to the Bronx.

"I think it puts a lot of pressure on me," he said about the expectations. "I just don't want to disappoint my family and the coaches. I just want to come in here, work hard and hopefully get the results."

How did Fordham land such a talent? With better programs in bigger conferences recruiting him, Paschall said the difference was the Fordham coaching staff.

"All the coaches here are great," he said. "They take great care of the kids. That's what my parents and I really thought about. They looked at me as more than a basketball player. They looked at me as a person too. That really made me a lot more comfortable coming here."

Due in large part to Paschall, for the first time in a long time, there's a sense of optimism at Rose Hill. Through their commitment to recruiting and player development, the Rams appear to be positioned to make a move up in the standings.

Of course, that's been said before. But this time around, the talent seems to be settling into place.

"I think this year we'll have a lot of talent on the floor," Paschall said. 

"Hopefully finish top five or six in our conference," he added. "I know we have a lot of talent here. We have to work hard for that spot. The A-10's not an easy conference, so we're going to have to work hard and get our bodies prepared for it."

That's already started to happen with the beginning of the summer workouts. Almost the entire team is on campus, taking classes and participating in the workouts.

Paschall is excited to be a part of it. After all, what could be better than being the star player on a college team that plays in your backyard?

"I like it," Paschall said about the school. "It's in the Bronx and it's in New York. There's nothing better than that."

Except for winning. Paschall is here to do that too.

Quotations in this article were obtained firsthand.

Charles Costello covers the Fordham Rams for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @CFCostello.

If I'm a fan of Fordham basketball, I'm rooting like heck for Tom Pecora.

It's not that the Rams haven't had good coaches in the past, but there's something about Pecora that makes you want to believe he's the one who's destined to turn this thing around.

Maybe it's the fact he's been a New Yorker from the start.

Or perhaps it's just that you like to see good guys win, whether they grew up in your backyard or not.

In four years at Fordham, Pecora has a record of 34-85. Yet, there are high hopes for 2014-15. There's more talent, and with that talent comes higher expectations.

Pecora understands that better than anyone, and perhaps that's one reason why you might have hope that after 20-plus years of some pretty bad basketball, Fordham might finally be ready to turn the corner.

With that said, there's still that "monster," as Pecora calls it, looming. It's been Fordham's bugaboo for 19 years: the Atlantic 10 Conference. Maybe in its 20th anniversary season, better luck will arrive on the steps of the Rose Hill Gym.

"The A-10 is the difference," Pecora said when asked what's made rebuilding the Fordham program so difficult. "We've gotten better every year, but so has the league."

For proof, Pecora points to the fact the league's NCAA tournament bids have increased each year he's been at Fordham: three in 2010-11, four in 2011-12, five in 2012-13 and an unprecedented six this past season.

"If you plop us in the MAAC or the Patriot League, we're pretty good," Pecora said. "But those days are behind us. We're in the Atlantic 10."

In 19 seasons in the conference, Fordham is 72-232 against A-10 opponents. Consider last season the Rams beat Manhattan. The Jaspers went on to become MAAC champions.

There are other issues as well. For example, in 2012-13, Pecora's third year at Fordham, the Rams played 20 of 31 games away from the Rose Hill Gym. While Pecora won't use that, or anything else, as an excuse, the reality is that a schedule like that has the potential to set a program back. It did. That year Fordham won seven games. The Rams won 10 games this past season.

"I think that there's a reason why those numbers are what they are," Pecora said when Fordham's A-10 record was pointed out to him. "It's my job to be creative enough to fix it, and to find ways to do it. Obviously it's a challenging job, but you don't live life with a rear view mirror."

For that reason, and for so many others, Pecora is looking ahead, very much looking forward to next season when the Rams will welcome Eric Paschall, Nemanja Zarkovic and Christian Sengfelder to town, while also bringing Antwoine Anderson and Manny Suarez into the fold. That's five new players, and with additional scholarships available, the Rams might not be done.

"It's our job to find Atlantic-10 level players that are willing to come here first and foremost to get a Fordham education," Pecora said.

Given the school's recent recruits—including Jon Severe, who will be a sophomore next season—the Rams appear to be doing just that. But there's still a lot of work that needs to be done, something Pecora doesn't shy away from.

"We're moving in the right direction," he said. "The last step in this process is winning basketball games, and we're well aware of that.

"As I've said more than once, a very smart coach once said the most important thing is recruiting, second most important thing is scheduling and then coaching is third. All three are challenges in different ways."

You really don't know much about Pecora if you have doubts about his willingness or ability to take on challenges. He could have easily stayed at Hofstra, where he won 155 games and made it to three National Invitation Tournaments in nine seasons.

Instead, he chose to come to Fordham, which over the years has proven to be one of the most challenging jobs in the country.

"I believed in the people here," Pecora said about Fordham. "I believed in (Fordham President) Father McShane. I believed in (then Athletic Director) Frank McLaughlin. I believed in the vision that they had. I believed when they said to me we are going to do business like the top teams in this league. That's why I came.

"Of course we haven't fulfilled our goals on the court," he added. "There were a lot of areas that needed a lot of attention when I took this job that were not directly related to basketball, but they are directly related to running a program the way Fordham University deserves for its program to be run. And we've addressed all of those."

Pecora pointed to the upgraded basketball offices, film room, locker room, arena and, of course, the academics, as examples of improvements that have been made.

He also talked about a recent phone conversation he had with Tom Sullivan, the captain of the 1971-72 Fordham team that won 18 games.

Pecora said Sullivan has told people close to the program that "the runway to takeoff is a lot longer than they thought it was." Indeed, it has proven to be just that.

"That is directly related to the level of competition," Pecora said. "When you get into this monster that is the A-10, you need to have players worthy of that league. That has always been the issue."

That's been Pecora's issue for the last four years. Though wins continue to elude the Rams, Pecora thinks they're making progress.

"Are there things we still need to work on? You bet. Are there things we need to do to start leapfrogging people in this league? You bet. But I still believe they can happen here at Fordham," he said.

It should surprise no one that Pecora, a New Yorker through and through, hasn't lost an ounce of confidence in himself or his team.

"I know I'm a good basketball coach," he said. "Other people might disagree, but that's OK. That comes with the territory."

Expectations also come with the territory. Pecora has embraced that part of the job, too.

"The challenge is still what drives me," he said. "There are people saying I told you so. There are people saying he's not the guy. There are people saying the players aren't good enough. All of these different issues.

"That just motivates me and drives me more."

The kid from Queens trying to do the unthinkable in the Bronx.

Quotations in this article were obtained firsthand.

Charles Costello covers the Fordham Rams for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @CFCostello.

The offseason at Fordham has brought with it the reminder that in college basketball there really is no time off.

While not a complete overhaul, the Fordham Rams will have a new look when they take the floor next season. When you consider how much they've struggled, that's a good thing.

This is, after all, a crucial time for the Rams.

The biggest headline since the season ended was generated by Nemanja Zarkovic, the Serbian-born point guard from Montreal's College Jean-De-Brebeuf, who signed with the Rams last month. Fordham was in desperate need of a point guard, and the general consensus is that they found a good fit.

"What I really like about him is he scores,” head coach Tom Pecora said about Zarkovic. “He's got a great toughness to him and a commitment to being a really good player.

“When I watched him work out, it was as good a workout, as hard working a workout, as I've ever seen a guy go through. In the process of doing that, he still shot the heck out of the ball when he was tired.”

Everyone seems to say the same thing: At 20, Zarkovic is a mature kid who appears well-suited to lead an offense.

“You're not getting a baby,” Pecora said. “He's physically and mentally mature.

“We evaluated him on tape against Division II opponents that went up and played there (Canada) last summer, and he played great in a lot of those games against good, veteran upperclassmen. And then when I went and saw him work out, I felt very comfortable with him.”

Zarkovic will no doubt be given an opportunity to show he's ready to step in and start next season. He won't be handed the job, but Pecora is confident he'll be in the mix.

“He's a student of the game,” Pecora said. “He watches a lot of film. He's a very bright kid. I think he can be a great floor general and a good complement with Antwoine (Anderson), whether he's playing next to him or they’re backing each other up. However it plays out, they’re competing.”

Pecora is big on competition. You have to be when your team’s won 34 games in four seasons.

“There’s going to be battles at every position on the floor,” Pecora said. “In the back of my head are there certain guys that I think are going to be starting? Yeah.

"I feel good about the group we've got.”

One of the players Pecora is counting on is Anderson, a redshirt freshman who was ineligible last season. Anderson has looked good in offseason workouts, and Pecora expects him to be a big part of next year's team.

“Antwoine is about speed,” Pecora said. “He can get from one baseline to the other as fast as anybody I've coached.

“That's got to be a weapon for him to put pressure on the opposing defenses.” 

Another player who could have an impact is Germany’s Christian Sengfelder, who signed with Fordham three weeks ago and should provide help in the frontcourt.

Pecora said he’s seen a lot of film on Sengfelder, and assistant coach Tom Parrotta, responsible for so much of the Rams’ recruiting efforts, saw him live.

“Big, physical, can play both the four and five spots,” Pecora said about Sengfelder, before adding that he’s a typical European basketball player with a "good skill set and a really hard worker.”

Pecora said last week that the Rams have three available scholarships. He said a recruit would be coming in to visit in early June and that Fordham is looking to add at least one more frontcourt player.

"Numbers are important,” he said. “If we added one more frontcourt guy, that would basically be six frontcourt guys. I think it's a pretty good group."

That group includes Sengfelder, Ryan Canty, Ryan Rhoomes, Travion Leonard and Manny Suarez. There's also Eric Paschall, whose versatility and overall ability will allow him to play anywhere on the floor.

Without a doubt, there will be more talent on the roster next season. That doesn’t guarantee better results, obviously, but it is a step in the right direction.

"Everybody is moving forward, as we are,” Pecora said. “The question is can we move forward to the degree where it gets us over the top?

“First and foremost it comes down to players, second is scheduling and then how we develop and coach those players is third.”

At a crucial juncture in the Bronx, there is no time off.

Quotations in this article were obtained firsthand.

Charles Costello covers the Fordham Rams for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @CFCostello.

Not only is the Fordham basketball program a work-in-progress, but so is its schedule.

A week and a half ago, the Atlantic 10 announced its pairings for next season. For the first time since 1990-91, the league is moving to an 18-game schedule.

The Rams will play five home-and-home matchups and eight single games against conference foes.

Fordham will face Dayton, La Salle, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Saint Joseph's twice and the remaining schools once.

Duquesne, George Washington, Saint Louis and Virginia Commonwealth will make the trip to the Bronx, while the Rams will play at Davidson, George Mason, Richmond and St. Bonaventure.

This past season, the A-10 got six teams into the NCAA tournament. Next season, Fordham will see even more of what's become one of the best basketball leagues in the country.

"That was a big bone of contention," head coach Tom Pecora said last week, referring to the switch to 18 conference games. "We were really trying to decide at last year's [league] meetings whether to go to 18 or stay at 16.

"All of the big conferences have gone to 18. We're a major conference. We're the fifth-ranked conference in the country.

"That's one of the reasons why we did it. Obviously it gets you another home game. But coming off a conference year playing 16, and you got six bids...as a league we said we'd keep an eye on it over the next year or two and then we'll make some decisions moving forward."

Fordham has struggled against its league competition since joining the A-10 prior to the 1995-96 season. The Rams are 72-232 against conference opponents in the last 19 years. Over that span, the A-10 has only gotten better, creating even more challenges for the struggling Rams.

"Our challenge is leapfrogging people in this league because everyone's going after it," Pecora said.

"The commitment at Fordham now is greater than it's ever been," he added, "but so is the commitment in the A-10."

To illustrate his point, Pecora pointed to UMass, which is building a $28 million practice facility, and Richmond, which last year put $17 million into its home arena.

As challenging as league play is certain to be, what's uncertain is who Fordham's nonconference opponents will be.

What's known so far is that the Rams will play St. John's at Madison Square Garden and Manhattan in a game that could be played at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Also, Monmouth and Siena will come to Rose Hill. The rest of the schedule is not yet determined.

"It's not done yet; we're still working on things," Pecora said last Wednesday.

Fordham is now looking at teams that would come into Rose Hill for one year, and the Rams will go on the road for buy games.

On another note, Pecora confirmed that Fordham will take part in a foreign tour to Canada in late August. That will allow it to have 10 practices in addition to the offseason workouts. 

Pecora mentioned the advantages of playing regular-season games at the Barclays Center, the site of the A-10 tournament.

"It's very hard to not go play at Barclays when you're going to play your conference tournament [there]," he said. "You'd like to get a game under your belt in that building.

"It's a good opportunity if they put us in there in a doubleheader. I think it's a great opportunity for us to get more exposure—more television and media exposure—for the team and the program."

Of course, Pecora also pointed out that when Fordham played Dayton in March in the first round of the A-10 tournament, the Flyers had more fans in the building for the Thursday-afternoon contest than the Rams did.

On the other hand, he said the school was trying to get the Garden to offer Fordham's fans better seats closer to the court, instead of making those tickets available exclusively to St. John's fans.

In any event, Pecora said it's essential to play games at the top two basketball venues in New York City. 

"When you talk about the Garden and Barclays, you have to," he said. "I think we have a tremendous home-court advantage here, but I can't get major schools, as we did with Georgia Tech and St. John's our first two years, to play us here.

"That's the issue you have here. Scheduling is a challenge and we have to be very creative in doing it."

These days, everything seems to be a challenge for Fordham. Scheduling is just the latest.

Quotations in this article were obtained firsthand.

Charles Costello covers the Fordham Rams for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @CFCostello.

Fordham's search for an assistant basketball coach will come to a close by Friday, Bleacher Report has learned.

The school is expected to announce by then a replacement for David Duke, who left two weeks ago to become the new head coach at Adelphi.

Tom Pecora, Fordham's head coach, said on Wednesday that he expects to name an assistant by Friday.

"I think that's something that'll probably come together in the next 48 hours or so," Pecora said. "I've spoken to a number of people about the position."

Pecora said coaches from all levels—from CYO to former Division I head coaches—have reached out to Fordham over the past two weeks to express interest in the position.

"It's interesting in college basketball the number of people that apply for jobs, and then the gamut—from people who are incredibly qualified to people who aren't qualified at all," he said. "It speaks to the passion people have for the game of basketball."

Narrowing down candidates and eventually choosing the right one is a process, Pecora said.

"We contact everyone who applies. Obviously, I speak to people that I believe are serious candidates.

"And then you have to see if it's a good fit. People very often don't realize what salaries are like in assistant coaching. Then you talk to them about [hours].

"It's a process, but we've got some interesting candidates."

As far as what he's looking for in an assistant, Pecora used a word that's tossed around frequently in sports.

"Chemistry with a team is very important; so is chemistry with a staff," he said. 

There are two ways for Fordham to go about this: hire from within or choose from the pool of candidates who have applied.

"The first thing you do is look in-house," Pecora said before adding it's "not a priority."

"Everyone has an opinion about what we should do and how we should do it," he said. "I'm huge on loyalty."

In many ways, Fordham is dealing with a special set of circumstances. This is not an established program looking to stay on top. This is a team that's won 39 games in six years, one that's struggled for 19 years trying to compete in a top conference. It makes finding the right fit that much more important.

"This is a boutique shop. This is not Goldman Sachs," Pecora said. "Some teams in the A-10 are.

"We have to be very creative in the way we do things. We have to make sure that going into a year like this especially—it's a special year—that we have a good fit."

Pecora's been given autonomy here, as you would expect. He gets to pick his staff.

"That's the way it's got to be if you're going to be successful," he said. "I obviously spoke to [Fordham athletic director David Roach] about it and let him know what my thoughts were and how we were going to go about it."

When he makes his decision, it won't be an easy one—neither for him nor for those turned away.

"It's challenging," Pecora said. "I have some dear friends that are qualified people that are probably not going to get this job. It would make it easy for me, but it wouldn't be the best thing for Fordham.

"What I have to do is what's best for Fordham and for this basketball team."

Pecora insisted that not having a full staff did not interfere in any way with the team's postseason plans, including recruiting.

He expressed confidence in his current assistants, including Tom Parrotta and John Morton, and also talked about how happy he was for Duke, who took over at Pecora's alma mater. 

"David did a great job here for us," Pecora said. "It was a great opportunity for him. David's had other opportunities. He doesn't want to leave New York. Like myself, he's a New York guy.

"They've had a lot of coaches move on to really good jobs going through there. And he gets to be a head coach, do it at home, cut his teeth as the head coach on a good level in the Northeast-10. All positive in that sense."

Pecora's focus, however, is on his Rams. By Friday, we'll know a little more about what they'll look like going forward.

"I've narrowed it down to a few candidates, and then I'll make the decision from there," he said.

Quotations in this article were obtained firsthand.

Charles Costello covers the Fordham Rams for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @CFCostello.

Playing in the highly competitive Atlantic 10, the Fordham Rams are getting closer to knowing the full picture of what's in store for the 2014-15 season.

The A-10, as CBSSports.com's Matt Norlander points out, "has averaged five NCAA tournament bids over the past three years." Now, the Rams will see more of the conference than they have in the past.

Last week, the league announced its pairings for the upcoming season. Teams will play 18 games against conference opponents for the first time since the 1990-91 season.

Next season, the A-10 will expand to 14 teams when Davidson College comes aboard.

Fordham will play five home-and-home matchups and eight single games against conference schools.

The Rams will face Dayton, La Salle, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Saint Joseph's twice while facing the remaining schools once next season.

Duquesne, George Washington, Saint Louis, and Virginia Commonwealth University will come to Rose Hill while the Rams will travel to Davidson, George Mason, Richmond and St. Bonaventure.

Though the opponents were announced last Thursday, the dates and times of games are not yet known.

What is known is that Fordham has not had a winning record in league play since the 2006-07 season, which only magnifies the importance of conference games.

In the seven seasons since, the Rams are a combined 16-96 against A-10 schools.

Fordham has been a member of the league since 1995. In 19 seasons, it's 72-232 against conference opponents.

After winning 39 games overall in the past six seasons—34 in Tom Pecora's first four years at Fordham—the 2014-15 season will be one of the most important in the program's history.

There is a sense of optimism heading into next season, however. With the arrival of Eric Paschall, the recent signings by Nemanja Zarkovic and Christian Sengfelder, the additions of Antwoine Anderson and Manny Suarez and the experience of Jon Severe and others, the Rams will have more talent on the floor.

Expectations will also be higher. 

What may help Fordham is that the Atlantic 10, which saw six teams qualify for the NCAA tournament this past season, should come back down to earth a bit next year.

ESPN.com's Eamonn Brennan took a look at the conference recently and highlighted some important departures. But at least five of the six tournament teams that are losing key contributors (Saint Louis may be the exception because it started five seniors last season) are bringing back significant talent.

And as Dayton proved last year with its postseason run, in this conference, anything can happen.

Dayton and VCU are two early favorites to win the A-10. Fordham will play Dayton twice and VCU once. There will be no breaks, making the Rams' non-conference schedule (not yet released) that much more important.

Here is a complete list of Fordham's conference opponents, courtesy of FordhamSports.com:

Home
Dayton
Duquesne
George Washington
La Salle
Massachusetts
Rhode Island
Saint Joseph's
Saint Louis
VCU
 
Away
Davidson
Dayton
George Mason
La Salle
Massachusetts
Richmond
Rhode Island
Saint Joseph's
St. Bonaventure

Charles Costello covers the Fordham Rams for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @CFCostello.

Before Jon Severe and Eric Paschall, it was Ryan Rhoomes who generated the headlines when he announced he was signing with Fordham.

Rhoomes was a star at Cardozo High School in Bayside, Queens, before playing one season at NIA Prep in Newark. After committing to TCU, he was declared academically ineligible in the summer of 2011, and the following spring he decided to play his college basketball at Fordham.

“Tom Pecora just called me and he says Ryan is the best big man he’s ever gotten, whether he was at Hofstra or Fordham,” Ron Naclerio, who coached Rhoomes at Cardozo, told The New York Post's Zach Braziller after Rhoomes chose Fordham:

They need a big guy. One thing they’re gonna find out about Ryan is he’s very efficient down low. He doesn’t take a lot of shots. He’s a team player. He’s gonna rebound, he knows how to play. He runs the court. 

Two years from now, he can be vying for all-Atlantic 10 honors.

Two years later, that hasn't happened. As a freshman, he averaged 3.6 points and 5.1 rebounds per game. In his sophomore season, he averaged 6.3 points and 6.9 rebounds per game.

Rhoomes will be the first one to tell you that things didn't go as planned in 2013-14—not for him and not for the team.

"We thought we were going to do a lot better," he said. "It really didn't go the way we wanted it to go. It’s just a matter of growing up and wanting to work. If we don’t work we’re going to get embarrassed."

Since its season ended almost two months ago, Fordham has been working, taking part in offseason workouts, which concluded last week.

At the second-to-last workout, Rhoomes spoke about what needs to happen in order for the Rams to have more success next season.

"We have to keep working," he said. "A lot of guys have to step up. A lot of guys have to lead. A lot of us have to score and do better defensively.

"Right now I don’t think we’re at that stage. I think these workouts are helping a lot. It's bringing us together."

Rhoomes, who was a consistent presence at the workouts, said he was working on a number of things to improve his game heading into his junior season. He mentioned leadership and attitude first, but then went on to say he's been focusing on free throws, jump shots and finishing around the basket.

He's hoping that all the hard work pays off next season, saying a 20-win season would be a good goal to set.

"I'm really excited because I want to see what we can do," Rhoomes said. "We have a lot of young guys in here. If we get this ball rolling it will be a big story.

"I have confidence in my team, I have confidence in my coaches," he added. "But if we don't work we're going to lose."

Rhoomes won't have to do it all by himself. In fact, he said that from a leadership standpoint, everyone will have to pitch in.

"We all have to be leaders," he said. "It can’t just be one, two or three people. It has to be everybody."

Joining Rhoomes in the frontcourt—which got a bit more crowded last week when German forward Christian Sengfelder signed a National Letter of Intent with Fordham—will be Travion Leonard, another Ram who had a disappointing year in 2013-14.

Leonard's points per game (4.5), rebounds per game (4.2) and minutes per game (15.6) were all down from his freshman season.

During the offseason workouts he said he was focusing on "getting in better shape, trimming down, getting better around the rim."

Leonard said that he "got lazy" last season and relied too much on shooting jumpers instead of using his size to his advantage. 

"I never really worry about scoring," he said. "My main concern is rebounding. Some games I’d come out and have 10 rebounds. Some games I'd come out and have two. That was one of the things that kind of disappointed me."

"It was very difficult," he said when asked to evaluate his season. "I feel I did better my freshman year than I did last year. I think it was mainly mental and confidence."

Like Rhoomes, he admitted there's a lot to work on, but Leonard is confident that the Rams can rebound next year.

"As a team we’ve been growing up day by day," he said. "We still have some parts we have to work on, but you can see it’s coming along."

When asked what would make next season a successful one for the team, Leonard settled on 19 wins. 

"I’m really excited to see exactly what we can do," he said, "and [to] prove people who doubt us wrong, let them know that we actually have something going on in this gym."

Quotations in this article were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.

Charles Costello covers the Fordham Rams for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @CFCostello.