Mike Magpayo knows he has a huge opportunity on his hands—it’s the reason he fought tooth and nail last spring to earn the job as head men’s basketball coach at Fordham.
“I was sick to my stomach every day through the process, hoping for the chance to lead this program,” he said at his introductory press conference in April.
Expectations are high heading into the Rams’ 123rd season. Magpayo joined the team after propelling UC Riverside to a historically successful five-year run. He earned Big West Coach of the Year honors in 2023 and never had a losing season. Now he’s aiming to perform a similar feat at Rose Hill, with a fresh roster of players who are all in on his innovative, analytics-driven style.
Fordham Magazine caught up with Magpayo at practice to see the Rams’ new team in action and get a crash course on “nerdball” ahead of the 2025–2026 season.
Welcome back to NYC! How does it feel to return to where your coaching career started?
I started all of my interviews here with the same line: “I love New York City, it’s my favorite city in the world.” It really is. When I moved here to get my master’s in real estate in 2010, I started writing letters to New York college coaches, and I got one response. I was very lucky that it was from Kyle Smith, then head coach at Columbia University, who I really think is probably the smartest man in college basketball.
I just happened to be on a staff at Columbia with Koby Altman, now president of basketball operations for the Cleveland Cavaliers; Carlin Hartman and Todd Golden, who led the University of Florida to a national championship in April; and current Columbia head coach Kevin Hovde. And really, it was just an amazing staff that we all got to be a part of. I run the same program and template, everything: the analytics, the system, a lot of the drills.
You’re bringing this heavily data-influenced system to Fordham. What kinds of things are you tracking as you prepare for your first games?
Kyle Smith calls it “nerdball”—it’s really Moneyball for basketball. And we call them hustle stats, but it’s more than that. We track 50 different things, typical things like assists and turnovers, but we also track assists to fouls. If I throw the ball to you and you get fouled, well, that’s a big-time play, right? You’re going to the free-throw line. Or, you get points in our system for diving on the ground; we call it “floor burn.” That’s not on a box score.
So, every single coach has a responsibility. They have to rewatch practice and stat it out. I used to do it manually, but nowadays it’s all code. It gives us our efficiency per possession, spits it out, puts it in order. It’s a little crazy.
Does that make practice extra competitive? It’s so loud in here and there’s no fans yet! You have guys getting chippy, hitting the floor.
I’m really glad you saw that. The secret is just that it’s building their habits—running in and out of water breaks, making them box out every time. And they know that they get points for it, or you get negative points if you don’t hustle. It’s really just this relentless accountability. You’re gonna play the guys that do things right, and it’s what makes us hard to beat.
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The 1970–’71 team became the “Darlings of New York” for their blue-collar style. In 2022–’23, the Rams recaptured that spirit and brought “Rose Thrill” to fans. What are you hoping the identity of this new group will be?
Everything I will be preaching this year is grit and culture. We have to be gritty. I want to build something sustainable. You missed it earlier: They literally did about 10 minutes of drills with bricks in their hands—we’re trying to use our length and get our shoulders strong. But it’s really about the mentality of building this thing brick by brick. When we feel like we accomplish something as a team, we drop a brick on this pyramid we have.
So we have to do our job, win the games we are supposed to win, and make Fordham basketball relevant. It got there three years ago. I always tell these guys it’s going to happen this year, next year, or in two years, but it’s going to happen.
You’re starting with a clean slate—a virtually brand new team with some big transfers. How did you approach recruiting 13 new players?
We went for offensive efficiency. We’re going to have to make 3s. You can beat any team if you make 12 or so. The second part is, if we’re going to win now, you might as well recruit older guys who know how to practice and what the lift is.
You’re recruiting a certain type of student-athlete that has a growth mindset. You’re getting feedback every day, and you’re gonna have bad days. You have to find a way to study it and bounce back.
Who should fans keep their eye on?
Everyone’s noticing the Harvard kid, Louis Lesmond. He’s from France and he’s a grad transfer. He played in a more structured system before, where you call a play every time. Ours is a little more of a flowy European style and it fits him. He’s thriving.
Zarique Nutter is key. He’s going to be a big piece. People walk in the gym like, “Wow, that guy looks like a pro prospect.” Christian Henry, the transfer from Eastern Michigan, averages 14 points a game. Dejour Reeves, another transfer, averages 17 points a game. Those guys are standing out, and they should, because those are the guys that had the highest usages last year. They are supposed to be the big guns for us.
You made a point to get the team out of the gym and into the city early on. Why were those experiences a priority?
The first meeting I had with the team, I said, “Fellas, you represent your family, but here you also represent the Bronx, and we represent New York City.” We did the Circle Line cruise to see the Statue of Liberty. We visited Ground Zero—that was important because a lot of these guys weren’t born before 9/11. We wanted to show them how New York City came together and brought the country together. So we do a lot of team-building stuff. It’s about developing pride and a tradition for them in New York City, to be proud to represent this institution.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
