Steve Austin says this is the most he's struggled in his quarter-century as a boys high school basketball head coach to determine who his top six to eight players will be.

"It could be a good thing or a bad thing," the second-year Concord coach says. "It's good right now and there are some interesting scenarios, but you also like to have things kind of set. We could have several different lineups."

Accenting the confusion, and the promise, is the fact that Austin is eyeing multiple players in all four grades as potentially key contributors.

"When you've got players in different classes, some don't know the system quite as well as others," Austin says. "They're learning that, and learning each other."

What the Minutemen do have for sure is two starters back from a 13-8 team in senior Doug Acker, who averaged 10.0 points last season to finish third in a balanced attack, and junior point guard Koby Eldridge, the area's assist leader a year ago at 4.5.

Two of the first guys off the 2008-09 bench also return in the athletic duo of Larone Smith and Anthony Yoder.

There's size in camp, too, as 6-foot-9 junior Coty Brown and 6-8 sophomore Jason Spriggs battle to take over the center spot vacated by David House, one of two All-Area second-teamers to graduate from last season's team along with David Yoder.

And there's anticipation. Freshman Franko House, a 6-5 package of promise, could see meaningful playing time immediately, while classmate DuWhan Alford isn't far behind.

Concord opens Wednesday at Lakeland and makes its home debut next Saturday against Fairfield.