In their first half of the new year, the Colonials built up a 15 point lead over the Rams, only to see it disappear into a nail-biter in the second.
Fordham cut GW’s lead to five points at 55-50, but forward Tyler Cavanaugh answered with a layup. The Rams pulled within four at 57-53, but Cavanaugh again provided the response. A three-point margin for GW was as slim as it got and, again, at 59-56, Cavanaugh was there, hitting a jumper off an assist by senior point guard Joe McDonald. Cavanaugh led all scorers with 21 points and added 10 rebounds.
“We had a tough stretch in the second half,” Cavanaugh said. “Came out a little flat but I thought we battled through and that shows he leadership of our seniors and of our upperclassmen to just be able to win games like that because, I mean, that team played hard, very hard.”
This year’s Fordham squad, now 9-3, had more gusto than the versions of old, which have consistently finished near the bottom of the A-10. The Rams had four players, led by guards Mandell Thomas and Antwoine Anderson, who had 13 points each, score in double figures.
The Colonials (12-2, 1-0 A-10) held their opponents to 19 points on 22.6 percent 
“It’s just you know a kind of lackadaisical effort there at the start of the second half which is really important,” head coach Mike Lonergan said.
GW outscored Fordham 16-10 in the paint in the first half, but Fordham ultimately won the margin 32-28.
Fordham was playing defense to get turnovers, going off GW’s wings to pressure when the Colonials tried to set screens. The Rams got 13 of them, and turned them into 16 points, and Lonergan said that the Colonials did not do a good enough job of taking advantage of the extra pass against traps.
“You’ve got to fight through it,” Lonergan said. “You’ve got to move the ball and make the extra pass and we didn’t do a great job with that what we did was we settled for too many three-pointers, I think we had two or three three pointers blocked out of the air.”
GW took what the Rams gave them at times – especially in the first half when the Colonials shot 45.8 percent – getting big three-pointers off a cross-court sling from Cavanaugh to redshirt junior guard Matt Hart, who sank the bucket in the first half and on back-to-back threes from Hart and graduate student guard Alex Mitola in the second with the Rams threatening. But overall, GW went 4-15 from downtown. The Colonials also struggled with 62 percent free throw shooting in the first half, but ended the game hitting 25-of-34 from the charity stripe.
Lonergan said that he expected a bigger margin of victory at home, but senior Patricio Garino, who had 12 points, nine rebounds and three turnovers, said that he expected Fordham to be ready, especially in the conference opener.
“It definitely is a good win,” Garino said. “A conference game is a war, we know each other really well.”
GW heads to another site of battle, this one away from Foggy Bottom, for its first road game of A-10 play on Wednesday when the Colonials take on Saint Louis at 7 p.m.
