Aside from sharing the Rams nickname, the Fordham and Rhode Island programs are very much alike.
When Fordham (5-14, 1-3 Atlantic 10) and Rhode Island (6-11, 1-3) square off Saturday afternoon at Rose Hill Gym, the similarities between the teams as well as the familiarity between coaches Tom Pecora and Danny Hurley will be on full display.
“We’re friendly,” said Pecora, Fordham’s third-year coach. “I’ve known his dad [Hall of Fame high school coach Bob Hurley] for a long time and his brother Bobby. Danny and I have had a couple of conversations throughout the year, little non-basketball things. It’s his first year in the A-10. [The Hurleys are] good people.”
Hurley, whose family is considered coaching royalty in New York and New Jersey, has been so focused on rebuilding a struggling Rhode Island program, he has not even thought of what kind of turnout to expect in what is a homecoming of sorts.
Both coaches have deep basketball roots as in the area. Pecora was an assistant and head coach at Hofstra from 1994-2010. Hurley spent nine years coaching at St. Benedict’s Prep then moved on to Wagner for two seasons before making the jump this offseason to Rhode Island.
“For me, I’m just concentrating on preparation for the game,” Hurley said. “We’re so busy working to fix this thing that I haven’t even had time to talk about tickets for [today].”
Much like what Pecora faced when he took the Fordham job in 2011, Hurley has made a jump to a prime basketball conference and has had to tailor his expectations after having success at Wagner.
“The biggest adjustment is having just gone through a rebuild, the hard part is going and doing it again so quickly,” Hurley said. “And then obviously the losing because that’s a byproduct of taking over a struggling program in an outstanding conference.”
Both Fordham and Rhode Island figure to be fighting for spots in March’s A-10 tournament at Barclays Center, which takes the top 12 in the 16-team league. Fordham is looking at this afternoon’s contest as a must-win.
“Every win is a must-win when you are trying to build a program, especially a home win,” Pecora said. “Any time we are playing at Rose Hill Gym, we expect to win.”
Even in a hostile environment like Rose Hill, Hurley’s team cannot be counted out. Rhode Island pulled an upset last Saturday on the road at St. Louis.
“For us, we’ve talked about 29 one-game seasons,” Hurley said. “What we’ve done a good job of in 17 games thus far is showed up and played hard.”