The names and faces might have changed, but the expectations at the Spurlock Center remain the same.

Franklin men's basketball graduated most of the key pieces from its most successful team in a generation — but while the lineup for Friday night's season opener against Olivet will be almost completely different from the one the Grizzlies finished last season with, coach Chris Hamilton and his crew are coming into the 2025-26 campaign with the same approach and attitude.

"We have the same goal in mind," sophomore big man Will Spellman said. "We all were on that team last year. We know what it takes to get there. We saw guys go through it. We were part of it a little bit ourselves, so we're really just trying to step up our game every day, keep getting a little bit better on the defensive and offensive ends, work through the little injuries that everyone's getting, and just be the best we can be."

"Building on what we did last year is a mindset that requires day-to-day focus," Hamilton added. "So that is the main intent of how we approach everything right now — embracing the opportunity to continue the expectation and embrace the pressure of playing for a program that expects success, while also understanding the discipline and consistency required to do that. Anytime that you have a lot of change, then the most important thing we can do is build trust, with ourselves, with our team, and create a team that people want to come watch and support. That's ultimately what I think sets Franklin apart — we've got a great, great support system that I think will really rally around this team."

Gone are seven seniors, including six of the eight players who averaged 12 minutes of playing time or more. Hamilton is expecting his eight most experienced players — seniors Connor McNabb and Avery Saunders (a transfer from Hanover), juniors LeBron Bennie-Powell, Dylan Beverly, Jesse Faires, Cooper Matthews and Braylon Russell, and Spellman (a sophomore who's got more of a senior mentality since he will graduate two years early) — to pick up the leadership torch and run with it.

The coach says he has been challenging that group to embrace the hard parts of becoming leaders and impact players — including being able to handle both success and failure.

The Grizzlies didn't fail often last winter. They went 22-8, winning a school-best 14 games in HCAC play during the regular season and then following with a run through the conference tournament for their seventh title. Franklin then beat Denison in the opening round of the NCAA Division III tournament, its first such victory since 2000, before falling to Washington University in round two.

So what can the Griz do for an encore? The first part of answering that question is figuring out what the lineup will look like, and there are no simple answers. Matthews was the team's top scorer last year at 11.7 points a game, but he's still making his way back from an offseason knee injury. Faires, Beverly, Russell, Bennie-Powell and Spellman started Monday's exhibition game against Wright State, with McNabb and Saunders each playing 15 minutes off the bench. Freshmen Rohan Pearson, Zaryen Moore and Nate Wilson also saw double-digit minutes, with Pearson scoring a team-high nine points. 

Nothing is set in stone yet. 

"We're excited because there is a lot of competition every day in practice, and that's what makes going to work every day fun," Hamilton said. "We'll see which lineups play well together in the nonconference, and that'll be the fun part of the journey with this group. The guys that embrace competition and embrace consistency, they will separate themselves over the course of the journey."

No matter who ends up getting the minutes, it's likely that the team will be at least a little different stylistically, because the returning players have different skill sets than the ones they're replacing.

"We're going about things the same way, just with different strengths," Spellman said. "This year's team is much more athletic; we might not shoot it quite as well or have the same senior leadership, but definitely looking more to get to the rim, get downhill. Last year we had Cody (Samples) and (Braden Flanagan) who both stuck it, Lynn (King) could shoot it, where this year we've got a lot of guys that — Jesse's always got a size advantage, I've got a size advantage, Dylan's got a size advantage, so we're definitely trying to capitalize on that a lot more."

Hamilton agrees that the Grizzlies need to be willing to adapt a bit, but some core principles will remain in place.

"We'll still be heavily intensive on pressure and wanting defense to be one of the main initiators of our offense," he said. "But we'll have to adapt to what this team needs to do."

This season could involve some trial and error at times as the young players learn to mesh with the holdovers, but the plan is for Franklin to enter February and March in roughly the same position they were in a year ago.

Tradition, after all, never graduates.

"We definitely have the same expectations," Spellman said.