Atlantic 10 Basketball: Observations from first month of 2018-19

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 09: Virginia Commonwealth Rams fans cheer against the Rhode Island Rams during the first half in the Quarterfinals of the Atlantic 10 Basketball Tournament at Capital One Arena on March 9, 2018 in Washington, DC.(Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images) /

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NEW YORK, NY – MARCH 10: Joseph Chartouny #12 of the Fordham Rams and Khwan Fore #2 of the Richmond Spiders dive for the ball during the second round of the Atlantic 10 Basketball Tournament at the Barclays Center on March 10, 2016 in New York, New York. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images) /

Fordham isn’t the conference’s worst team

After go-to player and lockdown defender Joseph Chartouny decided to transfer to Marquette over the offseason, not only was Fordham expected to be horrendous, but they were a near unanimous pick to finish in dead last. Two developments so far have made that prediction an unlikely outcome: A) some the conference’s other bad teams are off to absolutely horrendous starts – La Salle is 0-10 and Richmond and GW have both lost key players, and B) Fordham’s transfers and freshmen have clicked surprisingly well.

So far, the Rams are 7-2, and their most recent win is over a Big 10 opponent in Rutgers. It was difficult to gage where the Rams were at before playing the Scarlet Knights, as they hadn’t faced any actual competition through their first eight games and one of their two losses was to Maine. I won’t go over the top and say that the Rutgers win proves they can be contenders for the conference title – in fact, it’s doubtful that they’ll even crack the top 10, but the 11-12 range is seeming much more likely than 14th at this point in time.

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