Coming off his first .500 season at the helm of the Binghamton men’s basketball team, Binghamton head coach Levell Sanders’ fourth season will require a new identity for BU basketball. With several key players graduating, Sanders will lean on breakout seasons from his sophomores and transfers to take the Bearcats to the next level.

“We’ve had a bunch of guys injured, and we’ve got one guy that’s still unavailable,” Sanders said. “We’re kind of really just getting out, so we haven’t really seen our guys together, the whole team together. Plus guys are still trying to come back and getting into game shape and learning the offense, learning the defense. It’s still kind of a work in progress.”

After going 9-5 in nonconference play, the 2023-24 Bearcats started cold in America East play with a five-game losing streak. A breakthrough win at Maine, however, would finally get the ball rolling, as BU finished the season 7-4, capped by a nail-biting 72-71 victory over UMBC to punch BU’s ticket to the playoffs, where the team fell to UNH in the quarterfinals to end the year.

“We didn’t quit,” Sanders said. “We kept fighting, and that’s what I thought our team was about last year. We just had a bunch of fighters, and that’s what we got to bring in. We got to continue to show that fight and have that fight when things are not going well for us.”

All of those fighters from last year’s roster with remaining college eligibility will be back this year, with Binghamton being just one of five programs nationwide that can claim that honor. The roster is headlined by graduate student guard Tymu Chenery, who led the team in scoring with 14.6 points per game, and senior forward Nehemiah Benson. The duos’ new roles as captains, however, have brought new challenges to the team.

“It’s good to have guys back,” Sanders said. “But the thing about having guys back is that we have a lot of guys that’s going to be in different roles. Even though we have back [Chenery], [Benson], they’re gonna have different roles this year. So it’s been some growing pains with that to get guys to kind of really understand what it takes to lead a team.”

One of the lingering questions heading into the year for Binghamton is who will be replacing the playmaking of guard Symir Torrence — the graduated Bearcat was first in the AE and fifth in the nation with 7.2 assists per game. While Sanders says playmaking will mainly be handled “by committee,” one player projected to handle a good chunk of the passing work is sophomore guard Jayden Lemond, a transfer from William & Mary.

“[Lemond] is kind of like [Torrence] in that he is a pass-first point guard,” Sanders said. “The only thing with him is that he doesn’t have the experience because he hasn’t really played a lot of college basketball. Last year he didn’t play a lot, so there’s going to be some growing pains with him just because he doesn’t have the experience just yet.”

More than anything, Sanders’ philosophy of team-first basketball will be front and center this season. He will ask several players to take larger roles to add a new spark to his offense. Sophomore forward Gavin Walsh and guard Evan Ashe look primed to break out as leading options for BU while redshirt junior guard Chris Walker will look to find his footing in the AE. Meanwhile, transfer graduate student forward Ben Callahan-Gold will be tasked with helping Binghamton in the three-point shooting department.

As the team continues its journey to bringing an AE playoff basketball game to the Events Center, and hopefully a conference championship to boot, Sanders hopes that fans tune in to watch the new-look Bearcats.

“We try to play an exciting brand of basketball where we get up and down the court,” Sanders said. “We’re going to shoot threes, we’re going to have some dunks and it’s going to be exciting and fun. So if people want to have some fun and watch some good basketball, I’d tell them to come out and watch us play.”

Binghamton will take on Penn State on Monday, Nov. 4 for its season opener. Tip-off is set for 7:30 p.m. at Bryce Jordan Center in University Park, Pennsylvania.