The Windsor Lancers Men's Basketball team is busy preparing for the upcoming 2009-10 season which will tip-off in early November at the St. Denis Centre.

Following the graduation of CIS All-Canadian and OUA Player of the Year Greg Surmacz, the Lancers will look for leadership and scoring from a trio of veterans including Nigel Johnson-Tyghter, Isaac Kuon and Andre Smyth.

"We're still working out our other two starting spots," commented Windsor head coach Chris Oliver after announcing his roster on Monday for the upcoming season.

The Lancers will open their regular season on November 6th at home against York but they'll be in action October 15-17 in British Columbia to play Fraser Valley (Oct. 15), UBC (Oct. 16) and Simon Fraser (Oct. 17).

"Our guard spots will sort themselves out in our pre-season tournaments," Oliver said.

The Lancers finished second in the OUA West Division at 15-7 a year ago before losing in the OUA West Championship final to Western. They also lost in the OUA bronze-medal game 73-59 to Ottawa for a berth in the CIS National Tournament.

No longer with the team is Leamington native Blake Pauls, who decided to step away from team because of the academic demands he was under.

"He felt like he couldn't handle the demands of his course load and the varsity training schedule, which is unfortunate," said Oliver.

Beyond that, training camp did yield some pleasant surprises including the return of former Herman star R.J. Wells who is back after spending time at a junior college in the United States.

Other top additions to the team include 6'1 point guard Josh Collins, 6'8 forward Lien Phillip, 6'6 swingman Justin Wiltshire and 6'1 guard Enrico Diloreto.

All four of those recruits were rated in the top 10 nationally at their positions.

Other returning players include guards Monty Hardware, Matt Handsor, John Woldu and Corey Boswell. Other new faces include Michael Godfrey from West Elgin and Jameel Williamson from Pickering.

"We feel like everything is progressing," said Oliver of a team that finished last season ranked No. 8 in Canada and has been ranked in the top ten in Canada for much of the past three years.

"We're hoping to play 10 guys. We want to play fast and we're hoping to go up and down. We have that ability this year because we are not trying to to play one guy for 38 minutes like we did with Greg Surmacz last year."

The Lancers will open their 2009-10 OUA regular season schedule on Friday, November 6th when they host the York University Lions at the St. Denis Centre. Tip-off is set for 8pm.