The St. Lawrence University Men's Basketball team returns four of five starters from a year ago and the Liberty League coaches expect that combination to move the Saints up in the standings. The opposing coaches selected St. Lawrence as the No. 2 team in the preseason coach's poll released by the league Thursday.

Skidmore, who won the regular season and Liberty League Tournament titles, were selected as the favorite to repeat with 64 points and eight first place votes. St. Lawrence was second with 54 points and one first place vote, followed by Union (44 points), RIT (37), Hobart (34), Clarkson (36), Bard (23), RPI (22) and Vassar (16).

The Saints lost just one player from the 2014-15 team but it was the team's leading scorer and rebounder in Brady Condlin (16.5 ppg and 6.6 rpg). St. Lawrence does return a boatload of talent led by junior point guard Willie Zachery who was second on the team averaging 13.4 points per game and had a team-leading 71 assists.

The Saints also return a pair of Kyles with junior captain Kyle Edwards and fellow junior Kyle Kobis. The duo combined for 19.5 points per game. Kobis started the first 10 games of the season and then came off the bench for the majority of the second half of the year. The lone senior on the team, Kaleb Faison emerged as a starter for the final 10 games of the season and finished with 6.9 points per game and was second on the team with 4.5 rebounds per contest.

The wild card for the Saints is two-sport star Leondre Simmon who is also a starter for the Saints Football team and could miss more than a few games in the first semester depending on the success of the football team. Simmon started 20-of-25 games last year and was tied for the team lead with 31 steals.

"We have improved our depth this year," said Head Coach Chris Downs in his 18th season at the helm. "The quality of basketball player has improved and it's going to be harder for me this year to decide who not to play. In the past we might have been six or seven players deep where this year we are going to be 13-14 players deep with anyone one the team having a chance to play."

The added depth allows the coaching staff to increase the pace of play and to play more aggressively on defense.

"We are a guard-heavy team," said Downs with six guards listed as junior or senior on the roster. "We have a lot of options in the back court. I think we have as good a set of guards as any team in the region and their experience will allow us to substitute freely and not give up any talent level on the court."

The Saints have improved size in the post position with five players listed as 6-4 or more and four tipping the scales at 200 pounds or more.

"The guards are mostly upperclassmen with experience while the post players are younger," said Downs. "The question is how quickly the fours and fives who are mostly sophomores and freshmen improve. The pace of that improvement will determine how good a team we will become."

The Saints open the 2015-16 season with two of the toughest games of the year with SUNY Oswego and SUNY Brockport in the first two games of the year. Oswego opens the season at 4 pm Saturday in Burkman Gymnasium and Brockport comes in for a Wednesday night game four days later.

Both teams finished among the top four in the State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) standings last year and are always near the top of the standings. The Saints also play in the Medaille College Tournament with a first-round matchup against Medaille and a second round game against either Middlebury or Baldwin Wallace before a road trip with weekend games at Elmira College and Ithaca College sandwiched between games against SUNY Plattsburgh and SUNY Potsdam to finish out the first semester.