Khalid Moore helping lay foundation of success for Fordham hoops

An opportunity.

That is all Khalid Moore was looking for.

The Elmont native had spent four seasons at Georgia Tech, where he was a role player for the ACC program. But with an additional year of eligibility because of the 2019-20 COVID pandemic, Moore dreamed of the chance to do more.

A chance to score. A chance to rebound. A chance to lead.

Everything he desired, he found at Fordham.

Sometimes you can go home again.

“When I entered the transfer portal, I was trying to find a system where I could feel like I played a bigger role, and this opportunity presented itself to me to be able to play back home,” Moore said after practice Thursday at Rose Hill Gymnasium.

And the marriage between the Archbishop Molloy product and the program could not have gone better.

Fordham is 24-7 overall and 12-6 in the Atlantic 10 after Saturday afternoon’s 87-60 win over visiting Duquesne in the regular-season finale. The Rams finished in a tie for second with Dayton and St. Louis.

Moore, who had 24 points, has been a key to the Rams’ success. The 6-7 forward leads Fordham with 6.5 rebounds per game and ranks second in scoring with 15 points per game.

Considering that he averaged 5.1 points and 2.5 rebounds per game in his four years with the Yellow Jackets, Moore’s bet on himself has paid off handsomely.

“We’re not in the position we are without him and his play,” Rams coach Keith Urgo said. “He’s so versatile, scoring from the perimeter, he’s scoring off the [dribble and] scoring in the post.

“And then on defense, he allows us to switch one-through-five because of his versatility, his ability to defend guards on the perimeter and bigs in the post. So he’s a mismatch any way you can slice it on offense and defense.”

And the best may be yet to come. The Rams are in third place in the A-10 and have clinched a double bye in the conference tournament beginning Tuesday at Barclays Center.

What would winning the A-10 title for the first time mean?

“It’s definitely [going] to bring a lot of excitement to Fordham,” Moore said.

Excitement is not in short supply at the Jesuit school on East Fordham Road. Fordham’s newfound success has turned Rose Hill into a hot ticket. Saturday’s sellout made it five straight at home.

“You know how New York sports are and the favorite teams are the Knicks, those [1990s] teams with Pat Riley, and everybody loves those Giants Super Bowl teams and those tough defenses. I think that’s a lot of what our Fordham Rams men’s basketball [team] is currently doing,” athletic director Ed Kull told Newsday.

“Very, very strong defensively, very aggressive in terms of their approach, and I think it’s that kind of blue-collar, hard-hat-and-lunch-pail-to-work-every-day-mentality. Our students [caught] on to that and it’s contagious. They appreciate that.”

Certainly. But there is a difference between a one-off and a program that is consistently successful. Kull spoke passionately about creating and sustaining basketball and athletic success.

This season is Fordham’s first winning campaign since 2015-16. Under Jeff Neubauer, the program compiled a 17-14 record.

The last time the Rams qualified for the postseason NIT was 1991, when they lost in the second round to Massachusetts. One year later, the same teams met in the NCAA East Regional, with the Minutemen winning again. And that marked the Rams’ most recent NCAA Tournament appearance.

So yeah, it has been a while. Which prompted the question “what does sustainable success look like?’’

“Sustainable success for me looks like the top third of the Atlantic 10,” Kull said. “Currently it’s a 15-member institution, [so] our ability to stay in that top-five stretch to me is success.”

But before you can have success, you have to have a foundation. And Urgo emphatically stressed that Moore and guard Darius Quisenberry, who transferred in from Youngstown State, are part of the Fordham foundation.

“These guys wanted to come here to do something really special and build something that’s sustainable for years,” Urgo said. “Guys like Khalid and Darius, they’ve taken it upon themselves not just to win but to work with the freshmen and to continue to help them sustain things for years after they’re gone.”