Chautauqua Hurricane guard Larry Rivers (pictured above) is a key returner for the team this season. OBSERVER File Photo.

It’s a whole new look for the Chautauqua Hurricane as they begin their 2019-20 season tonight.

This season, the Hurricane will move over to the Premier Basketball League, which, according to coach Jerome Moss, means that the Hurricane will face some pretty stiff competition.

“Like always, we come into this looking to get to the championship, every year we look to do that,” said Moss. “We’re in a new league this year, the PBL, which is a hyper competitive league but I think we’ll be okay.”

Even with the swap of leagues, the Hurricane will still tip off against several familiar faces. Making the shift over to the PBL in addition to the Hurricane are the DuBois Dream, who are one of the Hurricane’s biggest rivals, and the Lancaster Thunder, who won the NABL last season. Because of the competition, Moss knows his team will have to be ready for the best.

“We have to be able to get up and down the floor,” Moss said. “We are a fast paced team looking to score at every opportunity. We play tenacious man-to-man defense, and because of the league we’re in, we have to. You got Rochester, who is always good. They’ve won it three or four years in a row. DuBois is always good. Lancaster was in our league last year and they went all the way to the finals.”

The swap to the PBL isn’t the only change the Hurricane will have to work through this season. As is the case with this level of basketball, only a few players return to the team every year, and sometimes players can leave almost at the drop of the hat for other opportunities.

“There is a lot of transition, which we like,” Moss said. “It gets a lot of different guys opportunities. There are a lot of new faces but a couple guys are coming back, Larry Rivers is our biggest piece coming back. But Marcus Feagin just left for Mexico a few days ago. We’re still building our team.”

While the team is used to the turnover, and they do embrace the change and opportunity that several guys will get, Moss knows that having a couple guys return is important to the team.

“We try to keep a couple guys, that’s always good,” Moss said. “They know our system so that works out well. They can help teach the new guys.”

Being one of the only returners, Moss expects Rivers to have a big season. Rivers expects the same thing from the rest of his squad.

“We’ll be very competitive,” Rivers said. “A lot of the talent we have on the roster now, a lot of this talent can actually start. We’ve lost in the championship game the last two years, I think we can make a lot of noise this year with the new group.”

Because of the turnover, Rivers and the rest of his team are trying their best off the court to get the chemistry aspect out of the way so they can begin their season. While the turnover may seem like a disadvantage, almost every other team in the PBL experiences this same thing, making the league a clean slate.

“We don’t know how we stack up,” Moss said. “Like us, every team changes over a lot of guys. We don’t get any early tape on anybody. Going into it, we’re just going into it with our best shot.”

While the Hurricane like to be a fast paced, transition team, Moss is excited for his bigs, saying that their inside game is “maybe the strongest it’s ever been.”

Chautauqua will tip off tonight against the Rochester RazorSharks in Rochester, in the beginning of what should be a successful campaign for the Hurricane.