It was, as Fordham athletic director Ed Kull recalled, a punch to the gut. Just when the men’s basketball program finally seemed headed in the right direction, the rug was pulled out from underneath it.

Kyle Neptune, the impressive young coach who had guided the Rams to a surprising .500 record in 2021-22, was one-and-done in The Bronx. Villanova hired him days after Jay Wright’s stunning retirement as Wildcats coach.

“So this is real?” a stunned Kull asked Neptune after he had been given the news.

“Yeah,” Neptune replied, “this is real.”

It was then, however, that a magical 2022-23 season, full of sold-out home crowds and the Rams’ first 20-win season in 32 years, grew roots.

Kull started a coaching search, interviewing 12 different candidates. But he had a pretty good idea from the onset where the search was likely headed. Keith Urgo, a coaching veteran with extended stints at Villanova and Penn State, had come in with Neptune, serving as a co-head coach of sorts. Neptune was so certain Urgo was needed for his staff a year ago he gave him a full 10 days to decide if he wanted to work at Fordham, Florida or Louisville after he left Penn State. Players lobbied hard for Urgo to replace Neptune, starting a social media campaign and flooding Kull’s email inbox and phone. They met with higher-ups at the school. The message was simple: The only way to continue the momentum was by elevating Urgo.

“We fought for him — plenty of people in our program fought for him,” said fifth-year senior guard Darius Quisenberry, Fordham’s leading scorer this season at 17.2 points per game. “The whole team pretty much went to bat for Coach Urgo to get the job.”

Fast forward to now, and it’s looking like a brilliant decision. The core, good to its word, returned. Urgo was able to keep the recruiting class in place and also to land coveted Georgia Tech transfer Khalid Moore, the Rams’ second-leading scorer and top rebounder this season.

In his first year as a head coach, Urgo has Fordham doing things skeptics said couldn’t be done. The Rams are tied for third place in the Atlantic 10 with Saint Louis, in position to receive a double-bye in the conference tournament. They have 22 wins, their most since they went 25-8 in 1990-91 under Nick Macarchuk, and the 10 league victories are their highest total in 16 years. They have sold out Rose Hill Gym six times, and there are no tickets left for the remaining two home contests. Urgo has dubbed the building, “Rose Thrill.” His brother, Michael, coined the enthusiastic and passionate student section, “The Shirtless Herd.”

“I pinch myself every day in terms of where we are,” Kull said.

It starts with the 42-year-old-Urgo, a firecracker of a coach. At the start of practice, he runs along the sideline, slapping hands with each of his stretching players, jumping up and down through a high-intensity practice despite a knee that will need to be operated on at the end of the season. A father of four who sleeps only five hours a night, Urgo insisted he downs only one coffee a day. It’s a drink called a Red Eye: A shot of espresso in a 16-ounce coffee. He doesn’t need more caffeine than that.

“You’re just so hyped up, because I’m living a dream, man,” he said. “This is not work for us. It’s a passion. You get, for lack of a better word, high off of the competition. If you don’t bring the energy, then you can’t ask them to bring the energy.”

Said Quisenberry: “He brings it every single day. If you don’t match it, he’ll make you match it.”

As was the case with Neptune, Urgo’s requirements of his players are focused on effort and a positive attitude. He won’t pull a player for anything offense-related. The Rams give their players freedom on that end of the floor. They demand everyone goes all out on defense, though.

“You mess up a [defensive] assignment, you give up an offensive rebound, you don’t dive for a loose ball, you’re coming out immediately,” Urgo said.

It’s working. Fordham has been winning with toughness. Eight of its victories have been by single digits and it has allowed 80 points or more just four times. The Rams force opponents out of their comfort zone, La Salle coach Fran Dunphy said. They take away their opponents’ strengths by overplaying or double-teaming stars, by making the secondary options beat them.

“That’s our identity. That’s a bunch of pride, heart and effort.” said redshirt junior guard Kyle Rose, Fordham’s top defender. “We want to make the plays other teams aren’t willing to make. We’re Bronx-built. The [coaches] instilled that in us.”

Entering March with NCAA Tournament dreams really is uncharted territory for Fordham and its fans. Quisenberry and Rose were asked the last time the Rams went dancing, and neither knew. When told it was 1992, when the university was a member of the Patriot League, Quisenberry responded: “Jeez, I wasn’t even [born] yet.”

Urgo has done his best to keep his players, and himself, in the moment. He responds to every positive text message he receives, after thanking the person, by writing: “Today’s love can easily be tomorrow’s hate.” He has another saying, one he stole from Wright: “Don’t taste the perfume — it’s poison.”

“Social media nowadays, and the love these guys are getting, it’s intoxicating,” he said. “It’s human nature to love it. Who doesn’t love it? But if you get caught up in that, it can bring you down.”

Urgo’s players try to stay in the moment, but it’s difficult not to think ahead a few weeks and imagine what it would be like to be the team to bring the NCAA Tournament back to Fordham. They now get begged for tickets, instead of being mocked for losing, as teams of the past had been. But if they do let it go to their heads, they would be forgetting what got them to this point. These Rams want to be the start of something special, a group that will be remembered for ushering in a new era at Fordham.

“[Urgo] tells us all the time he wants us to be trailblazers. It’s not about this year only,” Rose said. “We want to establish a legacy that’s going to be here for years. We want this to be Fordham basketball, not just one-hit wonders.”