Buckingham County High School’s varsity boys basketball team enters this season with the notable characteristic of being young, but it is poised to build on the strong finish of its 2016-17 counterpart.

Guiding the Knights will be new Head Coach Taylor Boyers, taking over after Russ Gowin became the athletic director at Buckingham.

“As far as expectations go, I think being so young, our biggest thing is we want to come out and compete every night,” Boyers said. “We’ll take pride in playing hard and just work to continue to improve throughout the season and to grow together as a team.”

The 2017-18 Knights feature three seniors, four juniors, two sophomores and three freshmen.

“I looked at all the (James River District) rosters today,” Boyers said. “We’re the youngest team in the district.”

Consequently, he noted he expects to see a lot of improvement from his team over the course of the season, and offseason preparation has put the Knights in a good position to start well.

He confirmed that a he thinks a .500 season or better is definitely within reach.

“I think our athleticism and our defense will be two of the stronger suits for this team,” Boyers said. “I think our defense will create some scoring opportunities for us just because we plan to play really aggressive on defense.”

Last season, Buckingham finished with a 10-11 overall record, with the season coming to an end in the Courthouse Conference 37 tournament semifinals.

Due to graduation, the Knights will be without guard Antonio Chambers.

“He was an all-state player last year,” Boyers said. “We’ll really miss him, and then Gray Heslip as well, who was (an) all-conference guard for us. …  We graduated over half of our points per game, but I think collectively, we can fill that void.”

Forward Andrew Johnson Jr. will be returning this season for his junior campaign, and Boyers said he is one of the leaders of the team.

“He does a lot of different things for us — he can facilitate, he can slash to the basket, he can rebound, he plays good defense,” the coach said. “So, we’ll rely on him a lot. He’s going to be a really important player for us down the stretch this year.”

Johnson will be joined by some other key players.

“Inside for us, we’ve got Brycen Newby back as a four-year letterman,” Boyers said. “JaCorey Holman, he’s probably our most improved player from last year. Also inside is Daniel Brickhill, and he provides really good leadership for us.”

Continuing, the coach said, “Some shooters that we have that can stretch the floor will be guys like Peyton Taylor, Trevor Kelly, Jalen Chambers. And then a few guys that we’re going to rely on to make plays for us, really kind of create scoring opportunities for us, be a playmaker, are A.J. Johnson, Javon Chambers, (Deamonte) Lassenberry.”

Boyers also noted that freshmen Franklin Lindsay, Amari Toney and Gerry Toney could see a significant amount of playing time this season.

The season begins for Buckingham on Tuesday at 7 p.m. when it hosts Amelia County High School.