“Every game is big, especially when you haven’t won a lot of games.”FORDHAM COACH NICK MACARCHUK
It’s been four years in the making and Fordham’s adjustment to the Atlantic 10 is still very much a work in progress. And despite his team’s surprising record and its sterling backcourt play, coach Nick Macarchuk admits the league hasn’t exactly been what he thought it would be.
It’s been much tougher.
“It’s more than I expected,” Macarchuk admitted before his 6-4 Rams hosted league foe UMass at Rose Hill last night.
The Rams had joined the non-scholarship Patriot League in 1990-91, and won conference titles in their first two years in the league. But they were hardly as successful when they stepped up to the Atlantic 10, considered one of the best basketball conferences in the East.
Fordham slumped to 4-23 in 1995-96, and went just 6-21 in both of the last two seasons. And with a record five Atlantic 10 teams being ranked nationally at some point last season – and five reaching the NCAA for the second straight year – the competition has proved fiercer than anything Macarchuk could’ve imagined.
“When I joined, Temple was kind of the flagship, and UMass was just coming up,” Macarchuk said. “Then that first year we played in the A-10 UMass won. GW, Xavier, Rhode Island are all strong.
Macarchuk has steadily improved the Fordham program each year. And no building block has been bigger than sophomore guard Bevon Robin.
Macarchuk convinced the Rice High School product to stay at home in The Bronx and the results have been nothing short of stellar. Robin averaged 18.3 points per game last season to lead the A-10 in scoring and win the league’s Rookie of the Year Award. And this season, while his scoring is down a notch to a still-solid 15.0 ppg, the difference is he’s finally getting help.
Argentinian forward Alejandro Olivares, who didn’t join the team until after the first semester last year, averaged just 3.1 ppg last season. But this winter the 6-8, 233-pound sophomore has blossomed into the only true interior player the Rams have.
He’s averaging 15.1 ppg on torrid 51.9 percent shooting, and already has been named the A-10’s Co-Player of the Week. Last night he was going to be tested as he faced off against UMass’ big men Lari Ketner and Ajmal Basit.
Still, they entered last night 6-4 (0-1 in the A-10) and making progress as their 73-71 win over Iona in December showed.
But Macarchuk says even with UMass last night and league power Temple up next tomorrow, his team isn’t to the point yet it can pick and choose its “big” games.
“For us, any game is important, to win any game you can,” Macarchuk said. “For us to get a chance to win any game is a barometer. Every game is big, especially when you haven’t won a lot of games.”
But that’s a situation that seems to be changing.