On The Record: Fordham’s Brian Bacharach Talks Princeton Rivalry, NCAA Tournament

PRINCETON, NJ. UCLA has USC. Cal has Stanford. When it comes to top water polo rivalries, big name opponents on the West Coast are easy to identify. 

On this coast, there’s Fordham versus Princeton. But after another decisive win by the Rams, this is not currently an epic collegiate rivalry.

The Rams, #5 in the latest Collegiate Water Polo Association Men’s Varsity Poll, and the #14 Tigers faced each other a week ago at DeNunzio Pool, Princeton’s stately facility in New Jersey. It was a highly anticipated continuation of a home-and-home series between two Eastern powers—and a possible preview of an NCAA Men’s Tournament quarterfinal match-up. 

If that happens, it will likely be no contest, because the Tigers are not currently at the Rams’ level, as evidenced by an 18-14 win by the visitors, one that marks the New Yorkers as the East’s top team, and a legitimate threat to advance to a second-straight NCAA men’s semifinal.

Eight minutes decide the match

After an entertaining first quarter ended in a 5-5 tie, the Rams came out strong for the next period. Goals by Luca Silvestri (hat trick), Luca Provenziani (five in the game) and Andras Toth (also five in the game) put the visitors up 8-5. A goal by Princeton’s Ádam Peocz (hat trick) was followed by three more Ram scores (Alessandro Salipante, then Provenziani on back-to-back possessions). Mercifully, Peocz hit a goal with 57 second left to staunch the bleeding, but the damage was done. Fordham not only held an 11-7 lead, the Rams scored at will—and the match, which would get chippy in the second half, was for all intents and purposes over.

Pair this performance with a six goal outburst in their previous match last September against the Tigers in the Bronx, and it’s clear: these teams are not rivals. The Ram win in DeNunzio—their first in 15 attempts there—extended an imbalance between the programs. Princeton won the series’ first 13 matches; Fordham has now won four of the last nine, including the last three straight.

Perspective from the Fordham coach

Following the match, Fordham Head Coach Brian Bacharach shared thoughts about his team’s rivalry with Princeton, his squad’s development over a long season, and the Rams’ opportunity to peak before the NCAA men’s tournament which will begin in December.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity

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- Based on what I've seen and the way your team’s been playing, Fordham is in position for another NCAA tournament. How do you look at this?

Yeah, it's an important game for us. And the reason is that if we’re lucky enough to win our conference tournament—we’re currently undefeated in our league—[this match] has seeding implications for NCAAs. 

Princeton's beat a bunch of [good] teams [so] if we lose, it has all sorts of implications. We were preparing all week to play this game. We want to win all the games, but we have to win our conference tournament to take care of business there. So, this has head to head competition implications; we are looking at that, we're scheduling around that and we are preparing for that. We don't take it lightly. 

- And you shouldn’t! Last year you drew #6 Long Beach State in NCAAs, Princeton drew #4 Stanford at Stanford. You advanced to play USC in the semifinals; they went home.

Exactly why seeding is so important. That was a very tough draw for Dusty [Litvak; Princeton men’s coach]. Honestly, we’re the ones who screwed it up. If we were the four seed, then we would've been playing Princeton. I think they would've preferred us over Stanford at Stanford. 

That's why it's so important to win these games.

- You’ve seen Princeton twice this year. Your place, their place. The second period here reminded me of the third period in the Bronx where your guys got the job done. Are you adjusting on the fly? Or do you take advantage of your speed, your ability to anticipate, your great shooting ability? 

Yeah, it's a little bit of everything. I got into the guys about their defense after the first quarter. Giving up five goals was atrocious. And so we got shot blocks, we got steals… we really focused on our defense. 

When we are playing great defense, that's when we're at our best because that turns into offense. It turns into counter attacks. It turns into [an opponent] driving when our guy's now going on offense and maybe puts a [defender] out of position on the other side. Or maybe we draw an ejection because that guy grabs. All those things lead to what we're trying to do on the offense end, but it starts on the defense end. 

I was really proud of the guys in the second quarter. It was one of our best quarters of the year. Maybe the other Princeton game was also one of our best quarters of the year. 

But for all the good that we did in the second quarter, we lost our cool in the third and fourth quarters and let them back into the game. Luckily we had a big enough lead, but we lost our composure and we can't do that if we want to win big games. 

- Scheduling a midseason West Coast trip against Cal, Long Beach State, San Jose State and Stanford will help put you in the position you were last year: tied late against USC and feeling like you can beat them. 

I was very intentional about how we scheduled things [this season]. The way I would describe my scheduling strategy is: I want it to be as tough as possible, but at the same time I want us in a position to win every game. 

One thing I regret is the Stanford game [a 19-10 loss in Palo Alto]... I felt [that] mentally it was too much, putting them in between all those other incredibly hard contests. You live and learn and adjust in the future. 

With that said, yes, this is all to prepare you [but] we lost our cool today. If we're up five goals against one of those top California teams and we do that, they may make a run and be right back in that game. I watched a few years back, Cal win a national championship down four goals with three minutes.

Four goals in this sport can happen very quickly. You never feel safe until the final whistle blows. But that’s a learning opportunity for our guys. Hopefully we adjust from what happened today and make better decisions in the future and control our emotions better. That's that progress that you're talking about; you have to continue to learn and to make progress as a team and as individuals. 

Some of our guys, it's never linear. You would love it if it was just a straight line up all the time, but it's up, it's down, it's up, and then it's really down… and you start to grow from there. I've been doing this at the college level since 2010 and high level, high school before that for several years. 

I'm going on 20 years of seeing this. I understand how people progress and give them opportunities where they can succeed, but at the same time, sometimes failing is the only way you can… 

- Grow, right? Trial and error are obviously critical as you advance. Talk a little bit about that Cal match you lost on a last second goal. How does that can give you confidence again when you're in, ideally a semifinal game against one of the Big Four?

It gives us some confidence, but obviously losing again is the lessons that we made mistakes down the stretch that cost us. And today actually we didn't make those same mistakes that we had against Cal, which ultimately got us the win. 

From that standpoint, I was proud of our guys.