NCAA Basketball: 10 biggest early team disappointments of 2023-24 season

6. Fordham Rams - 5-7

It’s a testament to how much Fordham has risen in the past couple of years, considering that they’ve been one of the bottom teams of the Atlantic 10 for a long time. They won 25 games last season in Coach Keith Urgo’s first season, followed by a nice offseason in the transfer portal.

But Fordham still isn’t in a position to lose the kind of talent it did last season and not take a step back. Darius Quisenberry and Khalid Moore were two of the best players in the Atlantic 10 last season and no one has come close to replacing their production. 

Lafayette transfer Japhet Medor (11.8 ppg and 3.4 apg) has been the team’s best player to this point but none of the returning players have taken much of a step up on offense. That’s made them vulnerable to early season losses such as Cornell, Abilene Christian, NJIT, and Central Connecticut. 

Now guaranteed to end non-con with an under .500 record, it’s hard not to have the Rams at the very bottom of the league before the A-10 Conference games get going. And that’s a disappointing place for a program to be after what looked to be a defining turnaround for them last year.