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Brandon Federici reaches 2,000 points at Franklin & Marshall

02/17/2018, 11:00pm EST
By Owen McCue

Brandon Federici (above) became the Centennial Conference's first 2,000-point scorer on Saturday afternoon. (Photo: Mark Jordan/CoBL)

Owen McCue (@Owen_McCue)
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In his 50 years of coaching, including 47 seasons as head coach, Franklin & Marshall’s Glenn Robinson has coached some good ones, including 25 All-Americans.

He’s also coached against some great scorers in the Centennial Conference during its 24 years of existence.

Robinson’s current star, senior guard Brandon Federici, has surpassed them all.

Federici broke Franklin & Marshall’s all-time scoring record earlier this season and became the Centennial’s career scoring leader as well. In Saturday’s game against Swarthmore, Federici added another milestone to the list, reaching 2,000 career points. 

He is one of 175 NCAA Division III players to reach the mark since 1975. 

“We’ve had 25 All-Americans, and he ended up passing all of them,” Robinson said. “That was amazing to see. Then the whole conference, he ended up passing all of those people, and of course I was there before the inception of the Centennial Conference when it was the MAC, so he passed a lot of really good players. Now, he’s got 2,000 points to add to the list.”

Federici came into this season with 1,512 points. He needed to get to 1,932 to pass Georgio Milligan (2008-2012) for the all-time mark at Franklin & Marshall and needed to reach 1,973 to become the Centennial Conference’s career points leader, previously held by Ursinsus’ Nick Shattuck (2004-2008).

The senior passed Milligan on Jan. 31 against Ursinus. Seven days later he topped Shattuck’s scoring record against Johns Hopkins. With 14 points against Swarthmore on Saturday, he now has 2,008 points in his college career.

The 2,000-point milestone Federici reached on Saturday is something he never would have thought of upon arriving on Franklin & Marshall’s campus as a freshman back in 2014.

“It’s nothing to even think about,” Federici said. “It’s obviously a humongous honor. It’s a testament to my teammates too. Obviously, I couldn’t there without the assists, the passes, all the point guards and the bigs. It really is a testament to them.”

Federici didn’t come into his freshman season with thoughts of breaking records or setting scoring marks. Following a high school career at Colts Neck High School and a prep year at Lawrenceville, where he averaged 19.3 points per game, he was content to just compete for a place in the rotation.

But Robinson gave him a chance to battle for the starting spot from the start, and that’s what he did, scoring nine points against Washington & Jefferson in his first college game.

“I just wanted to fit in,” Federici said. “I just wanted to be a role player freshman year, do what I was told. He called my number the first game and obviously I was a little nervous, but I think the big thing with Coach Robinson is that he recruited me to be a basketball player, not a freshman.”

It didn’t take long for Federici to become a lethal scorer. He had 19 in the Diplomats’ next game and had 28 points in his third college game. By his 10th career game, he reached the 30-point mark.

He hasn’t stopped.

Federici has reached double figures in all but eight of his 105 career games. He has 36 games of 20-or-more points and 11 games of 30-or-more points.

“The thing I said to the team is any decent player can come and get 30 one night or maybe get back-to-backers, but to do it so consistently for four years...is just incredible,” Robinson said.

Federici averaged 19.1 ppg as a freshman, when he said he was mostly knocking down open looks. Defenses adjusted and started to play him tighter during his sophomore season. Robinson said if they didn’t, Federici would score 25 to 30 points every night.

Despite the added defensive presence, Federici has continued to produce. He averaged 17.6 ppg as a sophomore, 19.9 ppg as a junior and is currently just under 20 points per game again this season. He’s also been pretty efficient, shooting 42.9 percent from the floor and 40.4 percent from 3-point range in his career.

“My freshman year, maybe even a little sophomore year, it was just like one screen maybe or drive and kick and I was always open,” Federici said. “Now, it’s like two, three, five, 18 guys flying at me...It’s a little frustrating sometimes, but I have to let it come to me and if there’s three guys one me and my teammates score, that’s just as good.”

Federici said he has plans to play professionally after his college career winds down, but he’s not quite ready to look that far ahead yet.

Something that has eluded him through his first three seasons is a deep postseason run. The Diplomats won 20 games during his freshman season but lost in the Centennial semifinals.

As a sophomore Federici and Franklin & Marshall won the Centennial, but lost in their opening NCAA tournament game. Last season ended with another conference semifinal loss.

The Diplomats are 20-5 this season and will meet up with Johns Hopkins on Friday in the Centennial semifinals.

“That’s like the one thing for my career that has been missing,” Federici said. “The points are always there, and that’s nice, but winning it’s a whole different feeling. Winning the Centennial and even going to the tournament, it’s a whole different euphoria, and I want to feel that before I graduate.”


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