By Joe Yamulla || Sports Editor
The F&M men’s basketball team is off to a hot start in the 2015-2016 season. The team is already 6-1, with a perfect 3-0 record in the Centennial Conference. The Diplomats are coming off an impressive campaign last season, and are hungry to achieve even bigger things now.
The season started with a statement win on Nov. 14 against Elizabethtown in the Rotary Tip-Off by an impressive score of 80-49. The following day, the Diplomat hoopers took down Oneonta State 79-71 in overtime. The team’s third win came against New Jersey City as F&M closed it out at 79-67. Unfortunately, the Diplomats will not be perfect this season. Lancaster Bible roughed the guys up, and the game finished at 94-66. Lancaster Bible is, however, still undefeated, so the loss was not one to worry much about.
The resilience of the team really shined when they came back out the following game and beat Muhlenberg 81-78, and then Ursinus 63-57, and finally Washington 75-50. It is no surprise that the star sophomore, Brandon Federici, is already off to a hot start this season after his record-setting year as a freshman. Brandon is the team leader in scoring averaging 15.6 points per game. Brandon has been lights out from beyond the arc, with a three-point shooting percentage at 41.5 percent. Cedric Moune has also been putting up 15.3 points per game, and has been the windex man cleaning the glass every night with a dominating 11.4 rebounds per game. With this, Cedric is averaging well over a double-double. The team and coaches definitely hope he could keep this up throughout the course of this season.
The Diplomats have been shooting the ball pretty well so far, but they can improve from their field goal percentage, which is currently 42.4 percent. Also, the team free throw percentage is at 72.6 percent, which fans and students could expect to rise as the team gets more into the groove of the season. However, the overall team statistics are impressive, especially their 8.7 steals per game and 74.7 points per game.
With the Diplomats six wins, head coach Glenn Robinson is only four wins away from reaching the milestone of 900 career wins. Robinson is part of a very prestigious and elite coaching club when it comes to his career. His win total is currently ranked fourth for all time by a coach in any NCAA level. Robinson has passed Jim Calhoun, Adolph Rupp, Dean Smith, Henry Iba, Lou Henson, Lute Olson, Lefty Driesell, Eddie Sutton, and of course the great John Wooden. Coach Robinson is a walking piece of history that we are fortunate to have on campus, and students should definitely make it to as many games as possible while we patiently await his 900th career win.
This week the team will away at Albright, but return home to Lancaster on Saturday January 2nd to play Misericordia. The season is young but the team is already settled in and ready to take on challenges, and Coach Robinson is ready to make history. It’s time to get excited about F&M hoops.
Sophomore Joe Yamulla is the Sports Editor. His email is jyamulla@fandm.edu.