BANGOR – With its season-opener looming, Warren Caruso’s Husson College basketball team has three good reasons to expect an outstanding season.

First, there’s experience: Four of five starters played more than 20 minutes a game last year.

Second, track record: The Braves have made five trips to the NAIA Division II national tournament in eight years, including three straight. And they’re coming off a 21-5 season.

Third, and far from least: Robert Pilsbury.

“[Having him] gives us one of the top players in the country, and that helps out a claim to being a top 20 team,” Caruso admits.

The Braves open their 2000-2001 campaign on Friday night when the take on the University of Southern Maine in the State of Maine Tip-off tournament in Gorham. St. Joseph’s and Colby face off in the other tourney game.

While the preseason NAIA poll places Husson just outside the top 20 – in 21st, to be exact – Pilsbury’s resume after one year at Husson is impressive.

He’s a third-team All-American. He averaged 25.7 points and shot 50.2 percent from the floor. He capped that season with a 43-point effort in the national tourney. And (get this) his coach thinks he’s better this year.

“Throughout this preseason, he’s demonstrated how he’s elevated his game,” Caruso said of the 6-foot-2 sniper from Portland. “Last year he showed his explosiveness very well … but what he’s doing right now is he’s making people around him better.”

Pilsbury figures that last season, he just did what he was expected to do.

“Everyone knew I came here to do one thing, and that’s to score,” Pilsbury said. “That’s what I did right off, and from there it just took off. It was great.”

That’s the good news. Now for the not-so-good.

While Caruso’s lineup is a veteran one, he’s also missing three key cogs in junior guard Jamel Brown and sophomore center Nikos Armenakis (ankle injuries have sidelined both until December), and two-year starting guard Anthony Russo.

Russo, who is expected to take the year off to tend to some personal matters, will be the toughest to replace.

“”Russo’s just like meat and potatoes,” senior guard Quinson Lancaster said of the player who was chosen as a captain before his sophomore year and is a junior at the school now.

“He’s solid. That’s something you can’t teach. He’s fundamentally sound, and that’s a big loss for us,” Lancaster said.

Russo averaged 6.1 points and 3.1 rebounds a game last year and turned the ball over just 34 times in 685 minutes of action.

Still, the Braves will put a potent – and proven – unit on the floor.

Joining Pilsbury as starters are Lancaster (9.1 ppg, 4.8 apg), 6-foot-5 junior forward Randy Fletcher (12.8 ppg, 8.0 rpg), 6-1 guard Ryan Rivera of Bradford (8.5 ppg, 2.0 rpg) and 6-7 center Scott Griffin of Presque Isle (6.1 ppg, 3.9 rpg).

Coming off the bench will be Nate Cyr and Brad Galley, each of whom played at Eastern Maine Technical College, and Scott Cunningham, a sophomore from Glenburn.

The Braves will be tested by a rugged early schedule that features the No. 3 (Embry Riddle) and No. 18 (Flagler) teams in the preseason NAIA poll.

Caruso figures those early tests will give his team a chance to find out if the preseason poll is accurate.

“We’ll have a chance to prove [we deserve to be No. 21],” Caruso said. “That [schedule] was done by design, because we had a group coming back that is experienced in playing at that level, and we’ll be able to find out what we’re all about.”