HOOP PREVIEW

With each buzz of the alarm clock this fall, Michael Haynes began to understand the changes in Fordham men’s basketball.

The pre-dawn risings preceded 6 a.m. team runs, where each of the Rams endured a piece of new head coach Dereck Whittenburg’s punishing conditioning program.

“The running was really crazy,” said Haynes, a senior and the team’s returning leading scorer. “Even the track team said we were running too much.”

Some days they ran 10 quarter-mile sprints. Others they ran in a slow pack, each lap around the Lombardi Center track seeming longer than the last. Always, they ran before breakfast, the clearest message that the team’s habits, if not its record, would change immediately.

Little about Fordham basketball resembles last season, when Bob Hill capped his five-year stay in The Bronx with a 4-23 campaign.

Even after the preseason regimen, Whittenburg continued his upheaval. He instituted 7 a.m. in-season lifting sessions, mandatory, monitored study halls and the wearing of “Total Commitment” T-shirts. “I didn’t really know the extent of what I needed to do until I started,” Whittenburg said. “This isn’t a rebuilding. There’s going to be a brand new image of Fordham basketball.”

The coach will lean on Haynes for much of the offense, with help coming from senior Mark Jarrell-Wright on the wing and sophomore John Blackgrove from the outside. Freshman Dominic Osei, a Lincoln grad, could begin the season as a starter.

Whittenburg’s roster includes six walk-ons, and as many as two will slide into the season-opening rotation. Those new Rams will face a rough start, with seven of the team’s first eight games away from Rose Hill, including Saturday’s season opener at John Calipari-coached Memphis.Next: Iona