Diplomats Rank Among Top 25 In January 29th Basketball America & D3Hoops.com Men's Basketball Poll

by Sports Information
1/29/02

LANCASTER, PA -- The Franklin & Marshall men's basketball team moved to 18th in this week's Basketball America poll as the Diplomats finished the week 1-1 with a win over Washington (80-71 W) and a loss at Johns Hopkins University (68-61 L) to improve to 15-4, 5-2 in the Centennial Conference.

In addition, the men's team remained among the elite of Division III as a select group of sports information directors, journalists and Division III head coaches at D3Hoops.com ranked the Diplomats 21st in this week's edition of the site's Division III poll.

To date, the team has been led by the play of sophomore Steve Juskin (East Hanover, NJ/Hanover Park) who is averaging 13.4 points per game to rank 11th in the latest Centennial Conference statistics. Defensively, through 44 career games, he now has 89 blocks, two short of surpassing Ed Plakans '93 for second all-time at the College in rejections. He could become the all-time leader at F&M this year as the sophomore will most likely trail only record holder Chris Finch '92 (103) following a January 30th game at Western Maryland College.

In addition, Juskin holds 6.9 rebounds per game average, 0.1 better than teammate Alex Kraft (Sr., Lansdale, PA/Lansdale Catholic).

Overall, Kraft is quickly moving up the College's leader board with 1,497 points, five shy of surpassing Jeremiah Henry '96 for fourth all-time at the College, and now has 655 rebounds, two short of moving past Ed Plakans '93 and into 7th on the all-time rebounding list at Franklin & Marshall.

Historically, he is the fifth F&M player to rank in the top ten in both major categories, joining Chris Finch '92 (1,287 points, 638 rebounds), Phil Hoeker '89 (1,333 points, 661 rebounds), Dennis Westley '81 (1,357 points, 669 rebounds) and Terry Scott '88 (1,663 points, 964 rebounds).

Ironically, F&M's season is eerily similar to the one experienced by the 1999-2000 Diplomats who started the year 9-1 before suffering four losses immediately following the Rotary Tip-Off the New Year Tournament, including three straight games. F&M would rally to win their next 12 straight games, claim the Centennial Conference title and advance to their fourth Final Four appearance in school history following a 75-61 win over Dickinson College on January 22 in the Mayser Center.

Further, F&M was ranked #19 in the country by D3Hoops.com entering their run to the Final Four, only two spots higher than their current rank in the same poll.

Elizabethtown College, which fell to F&M 83-80 in the Mayser Center on November 20 for their only loss of the year, jumped to #4 in both polls this week.

Franklin & Marshall will look for its 16th win of the year when the Diplomats travel to Western Maryland College for a Centennial Conference game on Wednesday. Opening tip-off is set for 7:30 p.m.

Basketball America is available online at www.basketballamerica.com, while D3Hoops.com can be accessed at www.d3hoops.com.

The D3Hoops.com Top 25 is voted on by a panel of 25 coaches, sports information directors and writers from across the country, and is published weekly. Previous Top 25 results are available at http://www.d3hoops.com/top25.

D3Hoops.com is widely considered the preeminent source of information on Division III basketball in the electronic medium. D3hoops rankings have appeared in Sports Illustrated, ESPN Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Hartford Courant and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, among other publications.