HIGH HOPES: Princeton University men’s basketball head coach Mitch Henderson, center, talks to his players after a recent practice session. Returning all of its starters from last year’s team that went 22-7 and make a trip to the NIT, Princeton is brimming with optimism as it heads into the 2016-17 campaign.  The Tigers tip off regular season play with a game at BYU on November 14. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)

Mitch Henderson makes no effort to downplay the high hopes surrounding the Princeton University men’s basketball team as it starts the 2016-17 campaign.

“This is the most experienced team I think I’ve ever coached; we have seven seniors, six of whom have played a significant amount of minutes and five of them have started at some point in their career,” said Princeton head coach Henderson, speaking last week at the program’s media day.

“I’m an optimistic person. I’m bullish in general. It’s hard to be remotely pessimistic with this group. It’s a really fun group to be around because they want to be good. We’re starting further ahead than we’ve ever started before because of the seniors.”

Henderson’s optimism is shared by others as Princeton is picked first in the Ivy League preseason media poll in the wake of going 22-7 in 2015-16 and making a trip to the NIT.

Boasting returning seniors Henry Caruso (15.0 points and 6.2 rebounds a game in 2015-16), Spencer Weisz (10.8 points, 5.2 rebounds and a team-high 113 assists), Steven Cook (11.7 points, 4.1 rebounds), Hans Brase (11.5 points, 7.5 rebounds in 2014-15 before being sidelined by a knee injury last winter) and Pete Miller (6.6 points, 6.1 rebounds) along with junior star Amir Bell (9.1 points, 2.5 rebounds), sophomore standouts Devin Cannady (11.6 points, 2.5 rebounds) and Myles Stephens (5.5 points, 2.4 rebounds), distributing playing time is Henderson’s biggest challenge at the outset.

“There is a structure in place and it’s some of the usual suspects — Steve, Henry, Spencer, Amir, Hans, Pete, Myles, and Devin, which you know about,” said Henderson.

“We have some guys that you haven’t seen too much. Aaron Young (1.4 points) has been very solid in the first few weeks of practice. He’s a junior. Alec Brennan (2.8 points, 2.2 rebounds) is a big sized kid who’s a junior. I’m not mentioning a lot of guys. Last year, we played up at Columbia, Khyan Rayner (1.8 points) played the entire overtime and we happened to go on an 11-0 run while he was in the game. Everybody is going to get their number called at some point, but those eight I mentioned first, that’s the Princeton team right there.”

Henderson, though, knows that one year older doesn’t necessarily mean one year better.

“The team is one year older, we haven’t lost anybody; but what I told them is just because you have everyone back doesn’t mean it’s going to be the same thing,” said Henderson, whose team opens its 2016-17 campaign by playing at BYU on November 14.

“Going to the NIT, we were ranked in the top 50 towards the end of the season. That’s why we’re where we are now. I told them they should be excited about that, but other than the people in the gym now I don’t think too many people care about it. In two weeks, we’re going to find out when everybody starts to put together a body of work, and we’re not different, who gets the rebounds, we have some people who have done that and we’re welcoming back eight rebounds a game with Hans. Who’s going to make shots when they’re open? We have a lot of guys that have done that. Who’s going to take care of the ball?”

For co-captain Weisz, the team’s journey to Italy this summer helped answer some of those questions.

“The Italy trip really helped us out a lot, to have a few practices and games under our belt against very good competition over there,” said Weisz.

“It’s a work in progress and we’re just striving to get where we need to be and every day in practice is a challenge and we’re looking forward to the challenge ahead.”

Like Henderson, Weisz believes that the Tigers can’t rest on their laurels.

“As much as we’re the same team, we’re a completely new team with Hans and the freshmen back,” said Weisz.

“We’re looking forward to this year’s challenge and keeping last year in mind, but at the same time only looking forward and understanding we have a big task ahead of us this year. We’re looking to get after it.”

In the view of junior point guard Bell, the Princeton players are going after it on a daily basis.

“As a group, as a collective whole, we’ve been pushing each other to get better,” said Bell. “We all have this one goal in mind and we just want to be the best team we can be.

Co-captain Cook believes that the Tigers can be a formidable team this year.

“We know we have the experience, we have the people to win games,” said Cook. “I think we feel like that internally.”

Facing BYU in the opener will give Princeton some good experience right off the bat.

“It’s definitely a big challenge,” said Cook. “They were a great offensive team last year so it’ll be a great way to see where we’re at defensively. They have a lot of scorers, they shoot a lot of 3s. They play a lot like us. I think we’ll be ready for the challenge when it comes up. It’s fun to play a game like that in front of a lot of people on ESPN.”

Henderson, for his part, believes the Tigers should have fun with a tough non-conference slate.

“I’ve got a screw loose playing a schedule like that, but this is the team to do it with,” said Henderson, whose team is looking to be sharp when its starts play in the Ivy League, which should have a different feel this year as the league will hold its first-ever postseason tournament with the top four teams in the eight-team conference making the competition.

“BYU is a real hard game and they come back here next year. St. Joe’s here. On the road, nationally people don’t know this, but Monmouth, Bucknell, Lehigh, Lafayette, they’re really hard road games. Playing Cal at a neutral site, playing Hawaii at a neutral site, at VCU, we’re going to get challenged every possible way, which I love. The sheen is off of all that stuff. They like that they’re playing in some big games. What I like is that they’ve been there before.”

If things go as planned, PU figures to be in a lot of big games this year.