DURANGO, Colorado — There will be a new look to the 2019-2020 Fort Lewis College men's basketball team when the Skyhawks take the floor this weekend, tipping off the new campaign as hosts of the Conference Challenge.

FLC gets the season started against a pair of Lonestar Conference foes in Western New Mexico University (2 p.m. Saturday) and Eastern New Mexico University (4 p.m. Sunday).

Following two RMAC championships in three seasons (2016 and 2018), the Skyhawks finish 12-16 overall and 7-15 during an injury-plagued 2018-19 season. But Fort Lewis spent the summer months rehabbing and retooling its roster around the returning cornerstones of redshirt junior Riley Farris, redshirt sophomore Brenden Boatwright and junior Will Wittman.

"We had to reconstruct our roster, but we were able to start with three quality bigs in Brendan La Rose, Boatwright and Farris, a veteran guard in Cesar Molina, and a starting wing in Wittman, so we have some good pieces back," said FLC head men's basketball coach, Bob Pietrack. "But we had to reconstruct the rest of the roster and we did that by bringing in nine new guys."

Boatwright, a 6-foot, 9-inch 245-pound forward out of Carlsbad, New Mexico, shot 56 percent from the field and averaged 6.8 points in just 12.2 minutes per game during his first season in a Skyhawks' uniform.

Whittman, a 6'3 small forward out of Arvada, started 10 of 27 games for FLC last season, averaging 6.0 points per game and shooting 42% from beyond the arc.

As for Farris, the RMAC Co-Freshman of the Year in 2016-17 returns to the Skyhawks' lineup after being limited to six games last season due to injury. Prior to going on the shelf, the 6'9, 245-pound forward was averaging 12.3 points and 3.8 rebounds per game as the centerpiece of the FLC offense.

"Sometimes when you're coaching and you have a good, young player, you don't really realize how much you rely on him and how much they mean to the program until they're taken away from you," Pietrack said. "We were 5-1 last year when Riley's injury became too bad to play through and that's kind of when the wheels fell off. Riley is a critical piece to our team. Not only does he bring experience and leadership from championship winning teams, but his offensive skill set to not only score but facilitate is critical to what we're trying to do."

What the Skyhawks are aiming to do is return to the style of play that elevated the program to perennial RMAC powers and NCAA South Central Regional qualifiers from 2015-2018 under Pietrack.

FLC inked key additions in point guards Logan Hokanson, a junior transfer who was a NJCAA Second-Team All-American at Snow College, and freshman Akuel Kot, as well as the added weapons in junior Corey Seng, freshman Junior Garbrah, and senior transfer Danny Garrick.

With the added firepower, the Skyhawks are optimistic they will be an improved offensive team after ranking ninth in the RMAC at 74.5 points per game in 2018-19.

"Offensively, we want to get back to where we were the previous three years when we were the top scoring team in the league," Pietrack said. "We focused on recruiting players we felt could put the ball in the bucket and we also really improved our point guard position with the addition of Hokanson, Kot and Garbrah."

Fort Lewis was able to get an early look at its key additions early in the fall semester when the team took a seven-day foreign tour to Costa Rica in late August, gaining valuable practice time, team bounding and three victories over the Costa Rica All-Stars.

"Coach (Daniel) Steffensen and I had always wanted to do one of those trips. Some of the thoughts around the coaching profession is you do a trip like that with an experienced team. But we thought doing it with an inexperienced team would help us make the new guys feel like experienced guys quicker," Pietrack said. "We essentially got an extra month of practice spending 20 days together so, although we have some new guys, we do have some experience with those new guys. Our transfer players feel like they've been here and our freshmen have some experience as we head into November when the games count."

Fort Lewis will get the chance to make hay early, tipping off the 2019-2020 season off with an eight-game home stand. Following the two Conference Challenge matchups this weekend, the Skyhawks will also host non-conference matchups against Northern New Mexico College (7:30 p.m. Nov. 15), Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (7:30 p.m. Nov. 16), University of Southwest (7 p.m. Nov. 20), and Park University (4 p.m. Nov. 30) before starting RMAC play against New Mexico Highlands University (7:30 p.m. Dec. 6).

The Skyhawks have been preseason picked to finish seventh in the RMAC coaches' poll, released back on Oct. 17. To improve upon that prediction, and to return to the mix atop the RMAC standings, Pietrack said the key for the Skyhawks this season — aside from staying healthy — will come down to limiting mistakes and the assimilation of the nine new additions.

"During the non-conference schedule, you hope that your team starts to fall into roles and players get comfortable in those roles. Then by the time the RMAC starts, you have a recipe for success," Pietrack said. "For us, we have to guard with effort. And when Fort Lewis has been good, we've been a good rebounding team and had a good assist-to-turnover ratio.  We want to play fast, but we want to play with structure. We don't want to beat ourselves because, in this league, if you turn the ball over and don't rebound, you can get in trouble really quick."