Tom Pecora knew he was inheriting a major rebuilding project when he left Hofstra to take over Fordham’s men’s basketball program.
Tonight, he’ll get his first chance to see how it is progressing when the Rams open their season at Rose Hill Gym against Brown.
“I wish it felt like my first game coaching . . . I was a lot younger then,” Pecora said with a laugh. “It’s new and it’s exciting, there’s no doubt about that, and it will be interesting to see where this team is.
“I think we’ve made some strides, but you never know until you get out there and you start to play and see if you can carry over everything you’ve been practicing for a month into a game setting.”
There’s definitely plenty of work for Pecora to do. After firing Dereck Whittenburg just before the start of last season, the Rams saw star point guard Jio Fontan transfer to USC, and the program endured a miserable 2-26 season, including going winless in the Atlantic 10.
Still, the cupboard wasn’t left completely bare for Pecora, who has sophomore big man Chris Gaston, last season’s A-10 Rookie of the Year, to build around. But after last year’s struggles, there’s more than a new offense to install in the minds of the returning players.
“I think they’ve done a good job, but there are gonna be some highs and some lows this year, just because they’re still grasping a new system. In the beginning, I’ll have to simplify some things and see what we’re good at, and I think there’s a lot of coaching that has to be done from the neck up.
“This is a team that struggled to win games last year, and you want to teach them how to win games.”
He’ll get his first chance at doing that tonight.