The Marian boys basketball squad will be bringing back a ton of experienced and familiar faces this season onto the court.

Former Colt star Anthony Agosti was a staple of the game plan over the previous few seasons during head coach John Patton's tenure with the program.Unfortunately, Agosti's senior season was shortened due to injury, but many other young players had an opportunity to gain valuable experience in his absence."We're very optimistic right now," Patton explained. "We have a lot of guys coming back from last year and we were able to give a lot of younger guys some looks last year."Not only is Ethan Kuczynski the quarterback of the school's football team, he's also a rising star on the hardwood floor. The sophomore guard earned quite a bit of playing time last season as a freshman."It might take a little longer for a football player to transition to basketball type conditioning (such as Kuczynski) opposed to someone who plays in the post. Ethan did a lot of good things for us last year and eventually worked his way into the starting lineup. He has great ability to get to the rack and score which is huge for us."Fellow football player Aaron DeAngelo and returning senior Mike Vercusky will be the starting "bigs" down low, crashing the glass for the Colts this season. Look for some younger talent such as Brandon Mohammed (So., 6-3) and Ryan Karchner (So., 6-1) to get a mix of playing time in the paint behind DeAngelo and Vercusky."Brandon and Ryan both played on the freshman team last year and are some good young players," Patton explained. "Both of them provide a ton of length, so we'll see what we can get out of them. Ian Myers and Kyle Plesh both work very hard too and could be get some time this year."There's a lot of talent at the all important point guard position on the Marian roster, but it remains in question who will earn the starting spot when the 2014 season tips off."We're looking for guys who are playing great defense and can get the job done offensively," said the Marian coach. "We like to play good man defense, and we try to spread the ball around as much as we can on offense. We're working some new guys in, and we will continue to do that."The competition for the starting guard position is between Matt Karnish ( last year's starter), Hunter Puza, and Adam Cortese.Patton said, "We've had 15 or 16 kids on the varsity team and each one of them have earned their way here. We told them we can't play all 16, but they're playing time depends on what they do in practices and in the scrimmages."Mike Wesner will bring his senior leadership to the table and round out the starting five for the 2014-15 edition of the Marian Colts."We want to be successful, what does that mean? We want to be better at the end of the year than we are at the beginning," explained Patton. "We're already better than we were when we started practicing. The goal is to compete for the division and get better."Be sure to keep an eye on this Marian team that is working on improving every day. Patton's squad seems to have a perfect mix of youth and experience."We're working on team defense and foul shooting right now. The easy points at the line are big when you're struggling from the floor. We've had great practices full of competition."We've had a bit of a rollercoaster ride over my four years here. Our goals are to make the playoffs and compete in the division. We understand that we're a long way from nine wins, which is where we want to be."