Dave Benter hopes his 26th season coaching the Brownstown Central Braves ends with a state championship in Class 2A.

In the meantime, there is work to be done.

The boys open their season today when they host Providence at 7:30 p.m.

“We’ve got a lot of pieces back,” he said. “We’re still not super old, but we’re very experienced. We’ve got a lot of scoring back.”

Heading up the scorers is Jack Benter, Dave’s son who recently signed to play basketball at Purdue. He holds the school’s career (1,859), season (774) and single game (51 vs. Austin) scoring records.

He averaged 28.7 points per game last season and scored in the 30s eight times and in the 40s twice and set the school record with 51 against Austin.

Other returning starters are senior Parker Hehman and juniors Chace Coomer and Colby Hall.

Hehman averaged 10.4 points per game last winter, Hall averaged 9.5 and Coomer 9.2.

Other players who played in 20 or more games were senior Adam Stahl and sophomore Micah Sheffer. Sheffer averaged 5.1, and Stahl averaged 3.1.

Senior Caiden Gwin, juniors Gregory Hutcheson and Pierson Wheeler and sophomores Lane Pendleton and Owen Wischmeier also lettered last year.

“I feel like we’ve got really good senior leadership,” coach Benter said. “We’ve got some skill and size in our younger guys. We’re very big. We’ve got a lot of positional size across the board. That is something we haven’t had every year.”

Benter and Hall are 6-foot-6, and Coomer is 6-5.

“We’ve got three guys, in addition to Jack, that shot in the 40% range from the 3 last year. They are Hehman, Coomer and Sheffer,” the coach said. “We’ve got a lot of guys that can do different things, and they fit together very well. All the guys I’ve mentioned handle the ball and shoot it. We feel like we can spread teams out a little bit, which is a good thing.”

Coach Benter talked about some opponents being strong physically.

“Some of the teams that we’re playing, from an athletic standpoint, we may get some things up, but I feel skillwise that we’re able to compete with anybody around,” he said. “We’ve got a very difficult schedule. We’ve got a very difficult sectional.”

The Braves will play Lawrence North at Brownsburg in the Sneakers for Santa Classic on Dec. 2, in the Hall of Fame tournament against Brownsburg on Dec. 30, at Carmel on Jan. 13 and host Jeffersonville on Jan. 6.

The Braves are ranked No. 11 in the Indiana Basketball Coaches Association poll. That poll does not separate the four classes. The Braves are the highest ranked team in Class 2A.

Lawrence North is ranked No. 3, Brownsburg No. 5, Jeffersonville No. 12 and Carmel No. 15 in the IBCA poll.

“We’ve never had this tough of a schedule at Brownstown. I’m guessing this will be the toughest 2A schedule in the state,” Benter said. “We’re going to play teams that are really going to challenge us physically. We’re going to play some of the very best teams in the state. We wanted to do that to help prepare us for the tournament.”

Benter looks for Scottsburg to be ranked No. 1 in Class 3A and for the Warriors to be the Braves’ toughest opponent for the Mid-Southern Conference title. Scottsburg is No. 18 in the IBCA poll.

“We’ve just got to work hard every day, and our guys have done that. We’ve had several good days of practice in a row. Our leadership has been really good,” he said. “I think we’ll have good depth. We have 11 returning lettermen, nine of which played meaningful minutes. We’re excited. We talked the first night about handling the target on our back and success and things. Sometimes, it is easier to handle failure than success. We never want to get too high and never get too low.”