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Men's Basketball Drops Battle of the Bronx to Manhattan
Dec. 7, 2011
Bronx, N.Y. - Some days it doesn't pay to get out of bed. The Fordham men's basketball squad discovered that tonight in the Draddy Gym where Manhattan College used a stifling defense to force a season-high 20 Ram turnovers as the Jaspers took the 104th edition of the "Battle of the Bronx" with an 81-47 win over Fordham. With the loss, Fordham falls to 3-4 on the year while Manhattan improves to 5-4. "This loss is on me," said Fordham head coach Tom Pecora. "I didn't have our guys prepared to match Manhattan's intensity. We didn't do anything well tonight. They sped the game up and forced turnovers which they converted into points and we could never get going." The Rams started slowly, trailing 8-0 2:24 into the game before using an 8-2 spurt to pull to within two, 10-8, on a Devon McMillan jumper with 15:16 left in the half. The Jaspers quickly got the lead back to seven, 15-8, with five straight points, and would eventually get the lead to ten, 20-10, with 11:51 remaining in the period when Fordham ran off seven consecutive points of its own to make it a three-point game, 20-17, following a Branden Frazier layup with 7:30 left on the clock. Frazier netted four of the eight Fordham points in the run. On Manhattan's ensuing possession, the Jaspers grabbed two offensive rebounds before sinking a layup that ignited an 11-2 run for Manhattan as the Jaspers took their biggest lead of the half, 31-19, with 2:43 left in the half. The Rams whittled the Manhattan advantage down to six, 31-25, after a Bryan Smith three-pointer with 1:30 remaining but the Jaspers scored the final five points of the half to take a 36-25 advantage into the locker room.
The second half was all Manhattan as the Jaspers opened the period outscoring the Rams 19-7 to take a commanding 55-32 lead with 13:56 left. McMillan finished with a team-high 12 points for Fordham and he also grabbed five rebounds while Frazier added nine points and three assists and Gaston contributed eight points and five rebounds. The Rams will return to action on Saturday, December 10th, as they travel to West Long Branch, N.J., to face Monmouth University at 7:00 p.m. for the second of four straight road games. Notes
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