Five years ago, the Fordham Rams women’s basketball team couldn’t buy a win. In fact, the Rams set an NCAA record for futility by going 0-29 in 2008, the most losses in one season in NCAA women’s basketball history. The Rams lost 35 overall, and went 21 months without winning a basketball game.
People often think of Connecticut’s historic 90-game win streak that spanned three seasons, but on the opposite end of the spectrum were the Rams’ 35 consecutive losses over two seasons.
Five years later, the Bronx school is back on the New York City map. While upstate New York tends to boast about their past and current success (Albany is 11-0 in the America East, 20-3 overall and Syracuse is 19-3 and 7-2 in Big East play), the Rams are fighting tooth and nail for bragging rights in the Empire State.
In 2008, that would be the butt of a joke en route to a winless season. Picked to finish 11th in the Atlantic 10, the Rams (16-7, 7-2) are shocking everyone sitting fifth in the A-10 standings.
The Rams have clinched their first winning record in nearly 20 years (1994-95) and have won more than 10 out-of-conference games for the first time since the 1983-84 season. They have also won the most conference games since they joined the A-10 in 1996.
And they gave the No. 18 Dayton Flyers all they could handle Sunday in a 68-57 loss to a 21-1 team that is undefeated in A-10 play. The only dubious statistic the Rams hold right now is a career 0-12 record against ranked teams.
The Rams have exceeded expectations with the help of two transfers: Erin Rooney from Monmouth and Marah Strickland from South Carolina. They each average 13.9 points a game, leading the team in scoring.
All it took was two years for head coach Stephanie Gaitley to rewrite the history books. Gaitley left Monmouth for Fordham, inheriting a program not accustomed to winning. Rooney followed her former coach at Monmouth, and has shined in the more competitive A-10 conference.
“We don’t accept losing,” Rooney told the Associated Press. “It’s not what we want to be as a program.”
And milestones for futility are certainly not what the Rams are going for. They are the small private school on New York City’s northern tier simply making up for lost time.
NCAA Tournament or not, the Rams are making history. And history always has a tendency to repeat itself.