The Fort Riley basketball team is 16 – 0 heading into their Conference Tournament which will be held at Wichita State University on April 21st through 23rd.

The team is made up of the best soldiers from the various units and intramural teams on Fort Riley to compete in the Central U.S. Military Basketball League (CUSMBL).

The league is similar to college level or semi-professional basketball; many of the soldiers involved on the teams have college level basketball experience or more. Sixteen teams across 8 states comprise the league which is split evenly with 8 Army and 8 Air Force teams.

Assistant Coach Jason Lafasciano played for the Fort Riley team before retiring in 2012. “The last team Fort Riley had ended in 2012, because the coach at that time left and Fort Riley did not have a team for the next couple of years until last year, the 2015-16 season,” said Lafasciano. “Coach Dunbar and myself met with the Sports Directors here and decided to start the program back up.”

Darryl Dunbar is Head Coach of the team. Lafasciano said that last year was a learning experience for the coaches, but this year they’ve worked hard to win.

“This year coming in we had an idea, we had a foundation, we had returning players to help the newer players [and] as coaches we had an idea of what we were going to be doing as far as traveling and stuff like that and how taxing the season is,” said Lafasciano.

The team also played in the Manhattan Adult Recreational League to get more games in between their military matches; the team won the championship game on February 22nd.

Not only is Lafasciano Assistant Coach, but he also is Commissioner of the CUSMBL.

“We expanded [the league] from ten teams last year to sixteen this year, and we’re looking to expand out to twenty next year…this is the first year that this conference’s tournament will be held off a military installation, where it’s open to the public [and] it’s open to scouts,” said Lafasciano. “A lot of these kids have the talent and played a little bit before they came into the Military, and a lot of them still have the desire to do so when they get out.”

The Conference Championship will be a double elimination style tournament with the top two teams going on to compete in the Military Nationals in May.

Ahead of the Conference Championship in April, there will be a home tournament this Saturday, March 4th and Sunday, March 5th at King Fieldhouse on Fort Riley. Game times on Saturday are 1:30 pm, 3:30 pm, and 5:30 pm; on Sunday game times are 9:00 am, 11:00 am, and 1:00 pm.

“With us being a new program again, sort of re-emerging back on Fort Riley, we try to get as much community support as we can,” said Lafasciano.

The games are open to the public. Those wishing to gain entrance to Fort Riley without a DoD ID Card should visit the Visitor Control Center at Henry Gate to obtain a visitor’s pass.