Only a shadow remains of what had been the core of the Binghamton University women’s basketball team for the past two years.

Gone are all three of last season’s leading scorers, four players who received regular starts and the one player who had been the program’s undisputed star during her time at BU.

In the place of it all is a new attitude; one that, thus far, seems to define the 2012-13 Bearcats: They are hungry.

“A lot of new players are getting new chances, including myself, so there is something to prove,” junior guard Stephanie Jensen said. “I think that’s definitely affecting the attitude on the team, because I’m hungry. And so are my teammates who haven’t played, and the freshmen are hungry, and we just feed off each other all the time.”

The graduation of last year’s three leading scorers, Andrea Holmes, Viive Rebane and Orla O’Reilly, has created the potential for several of last year’s secondary players, like Jensen, to take on much more central roles.

Jensen saw just one start last season, appearing in a total of 10 games for the second straight year. But in Tuesday night’s season-opening exhibition against Mansfield University, Jensen looked more like the star than a bench player, registering a game-high 14 points and four 3-pointers.

Binghamton also brings to the table five freshmen with the potential to make an immediate impact. Rookie guard Kandace Newry made this clear in Tuesday’s exhibition, garnering Player of the Game honors after catching the attention of the crowd with an impressive second-half streak of four consecutive made jumpers — three of which came from behind the arc.

But with a No. 8 ranking in the America East preseason poll, gone too for Binghamton is the burden of high expectations that had greeted the team at the dawn of the last three seasons. None of those teams achieved the ultimate goal, though, as the Bearcats fell in the conference tournament quarterfinals each of the last two seasons after suffering elimination in the semifinals in 2009-10.

But it is not this sense of disappointment that fuels Binghamton’s hunger. This year’s squad knows that the majority of its current roster played a secondary role, if any at all, in the relative failure of the last three seasons. The Bearcats are working with a blank canvas again.

“I don’t think there’s any pressure whatsoever right now; I think there’s a lot of room for us to shine really,” Jensen said. “We disappointed as a team last year, so we can only be better. With the people that we lost, there’s obviously four starters and four people that meant a lot scoring wise, but you know I never played, really, [senior forward] Kara [Elofson] was out for half of the season … I just feel like I’m starting from scratch and I can only really improve.”

The Bearcats do return two starters from last year’s squad in Elofson and junior guard Jasbriell Swain.

The 2011 America East Rookie of the Year, Swain remains perhaps the brightest spot on BU’s roster, despite a decrease in production during her sophomore season. She is also the likeliest candidate to fill the role of star player that was left vacant with Holmes’ departure. But in a post-game press conference following Tuesday’s exhibition, Swain appeared visibly surprised when asked if she felt this was “[her] team” and her “time to shine” with Holmes and the other leaders gone.

“We have a lot of people that can fill those shoes,” she said. “Stephanie [Jensen] proved tonight she could shoot just as well as Orla [O’Reilly] could shoot, and [junior guard Vaneeshia Paulk] can get to the basket just as well as Andrea [Holmes] can get to the basket, so I feel like we have a lot of different things to offer. We can’t really be those exact people that our seniors were last year, but I feel like everybody’s coming together as a unit and trying to fill those shoes and trying to be a better team. It’s not just about one person; it’s about the whole team.”

And the Bearcats seem to get that this year. They may be without a true star and without several things from last year’s squad, but they have not been left without hope.

“I think if we just keep working hard and we just keep improving every day and every game and we take something out of every practice, I think we could definitely be a threat,” Elofson said. “As long as we keep pushing ourselves and not getting complacent. I think … a big thing last year was that we got complacent with where we were.”

Elofson said she sees the Bearcats going far, as long as they remain hungry.