Friday, November 13 at Northwestern (7 p.m.)
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LOWELL, Mass. - The UMass Lowell men's basketball team is ready for another year of growth and development, as the squad prepares to head into 2015-16. The new season marks the beginning of the second half of the River Hawks' four-year NCAA Division I transition. Head Coach Pat Duquette and his young team open their campaign at Big Ten opponent Northwestern on Friday, November 13 at 8 p.m.

"We're all excited to get started and see the level of talent we were able to attract in such a short period of time," said Duquette, who is entering his third year at the helm of the River Hawks. "We feel like we legitimately have more talent and more depth than we've had in the past, and we're starting to see our brand of basketball developing, so that's exciting for us as a coaching staff."

After leading UMass Lowell to its best Division I finish yet in 2014-15 with a 12-17 overall record, Coach Duquette is happy with the progress he has seen from his program, and is looking forward to continuing to build a successful culture in the coming year with his team of five returners and eight newcomers.

"Overall, everyone was pleased with the year we had last year because we made some progress from year one," explained Duquette. "We haven't been measuring ourselves as much in wins and losses in these first two years as we will in the future, we've just talked about building a strong foundation, establishing an identity, and really start to build this thing from the ground up."

PROGRAM GOALS
According to Duquette, he thinks the team and his staff have done a good job in accomplishing the goals they had set in place for the first two years of the reclassification period.

"We've accomplished most of our goals in year one and year two in terms of really building a strong foundation. We needed to get an influx of Division I talent in here as soon as possible, which is really hard to do when you're coming from DII and you're NCAA ineligible. I think our staff did a great job evaluating players from around the country, who might have fallen through the cracks and are a little bit better than other recruiters thought."

Now that the River Hawks have a good base of talent that can compete at the Division I level, Coach Duquette's biggest goal is to develop that talent. In his opinion, the team's biggest key to success this year will be getting his young team playing experience so they can mature quickly.

"Our biggest challenge in my first two years was having enough talent to put on the floor. And the fact that our size was such a huge detriment to us, we had to do some things to make up for it. This year, we've got a little more size. We've got the potential for a 6'7"-6'8" front court, which we've never had before. We've also got way more depth, so the main goal right now is for these talented young guys to play as comfortable, as confidently and as loose as we can get them to play, while growing up fast. I think once we get beyond that, it'll really start to translate into terms of wins and losses."

NEWCOMERS
Duquette's eight-member freshman class is made up of three redshirts and five true rookies. Redshirts Josh Gantz (Grove City, Ohio), Jordan Shea (Madison, Wis.) and Dontavious Smith (Cullen, La.) will be joined by newcomers Donny Belcher III (Irving, Texas), Keith Hayes II (Bryant, Ark.), Ryan Jones (Rio Rancho, N.M.), Logan Primerano (Peru, Ind.) and Isaac White (Ashland, Ohio).

With only two starters returning from last year's squad and only three upper classmen on the 13-man roster for 2015-16, the newcomers will need to step up and contribute right away.

"The freshmen are going to play a huge role," commented Duquette. "With eight freshmen, we're clearly going to need immediate impacts from them. How quickly they embrace that challenge, and how quickly they take care of that challenge, will determine how quickly we win and have success.

"Our redshirts Jordan Shea, Dontavious Smith and Josh Gantz had the benefit of a full year of development, so they're probably a little ahead in terms of executing and knowing our system, but the five true freshmen have all been able to get up to speed fast and contribute in practice. I expect possibly all of them to have some type of role moving forward this year."

VETERANS
The River Hawks look to a core group of veterans for leadership in 2015-16. Guards DJ Mlachnik (Muskego, Wis.) and Mark Cornelius (Westford, Mass.) are the only seniors on the squad, while forward Tyler Livingston (Hudson, N.H.) is the lone junior.

"We're fortunate to have the right upperclassmen in our program," said Duquette. "Even though we don't have many of them, we've got the right type of guys. We've got high character guys, who are going to provide the right type of leadership.

"Mark and DJ have been such a critical part of building this program right from the start. They were there in the early days when it's hardest, and you're going through your biggest challenges and your hardest times. Those guys were there, they were coachable and they accepted our staff from day one. They've always provided consistent, strong leadership, no matter what challenge we were going through. I couldn't be happier going into this season knowing that the leadership, in addition to coming from our coaching staff, is going to come from guys like Mark and DJ because they represent everything that we want."

In addition to the upperclassmen, redshirt-sophomore guard/forward Jahad Thomas (Williamsport, Pa.) is the team's top returning scorer from a season ago, having averaged 14.3 points and 6.5 rebounds per game. He is joined by fellow sophomore guard Matt Harris (Erie, Pa.), who saw action in 26 games in 2014-15 with 8.8 points per game and a team-high 47 made three-point field goals.   

THE OPPONENTS
Coach Duquette has put together yet another challenging slate for 2015-16. The upcoming year features several non-conference matchups against big name opponents, including Notre Dame and Connecticut, who were nationally ranked in this year's preseason polls.

"We've got a really tough, exciting non-conference schedule that everyone can be excited about," concluded Duquette. "Our guys really enjoy playing the bigger schools and it's a great benefit for our program. A lot of people might say it's a little too aggressive of a schedule, but I think if you're trying to grow up fast and you're trying to get a young group tested, I don't think there's a better way than to play a really tough non-conference schedule. It's great for the university and I think it'll help our young guys develop."