Every team faces many questions coming into a new season.

For the Auburn Mountainview boys basketball team, this season was no different.

All the normal questions were there.

With just two returning starters, 6-foot-2 senior guard Michael Patenaude and 6-foot guard Josh Alexander, would the team be able to compete in a tough South Puget Sound League 3A division? Would the team be able to come together on the court and better last year’s 8-12 record and qualify for the postseason?

In addition, the Lions have had to deal with a question of eligibility this year, a situation that raised its head a week before the team’s season opener, according to coach Jon Price.

“About a week before the season, they did a credit check on (Patenaude) for graduation and determined he was ineligible to play,” Price said. “He played here as a junior and everything was fine, he played all summer and all fall.”

According to Price, the problem manifested because Patenaude spent several years attending school in Australia.

“His dad works for Boeing and they were assigned to Australia for four years,” he said.

As Patenaude explained: “It was basically because when I moved down there, I had to jump up half a year to the eighth grade. When I moved back here, I wasn’t sure if I had enough credits to graduate, so we decided academically, not athletically, to jump down to 10th grade. I was still in the age range.”

Patenaude said his mom and his counselor stumbled across the discrepancy in credits while preparing his transcripts.

Although Patenaude said that he was pretty “upset” about the timing of the notification, less than a week before the first game of the season, he and his family, with the support of Price, went to work to petition the Washington State Interscholastic Activities Association for the chance to finish out his final year.

“First, he went through the West Central District and was denied,” Price said. “Then he went through the hearing examiner for the WIAA and was denied. Then he had a meeting with (WIAA executive director) Mike Colbrese and was denied. Finally a second meeting with Colbrese (on Tuesday) was approved and he got eligibility to play.”

“I was ecstatic, you couldn’t keep the smile off my face,” Patenaude said. “We were turned down three times, and it was getting to the point where we were going to have to get a lawyer, and who knows how long that would take.”

This past Tuesday, Patenaude returned to the hardwood for the Lions, pouring in 17 points in a 82-53 loss to Franklin Pierce.

“It’s huge having him back,” Price said. “He’s a first-team all-league (player), a 17-points-per-game type of kid.”

Although the Lions have struggled early in the season, Price said he’s confident his team will rally and be able to compete in the SPSL 3A, which features No. 3-ranked Enumclaw and No. 10 Lakes.

“We’ve had some little injuries and stuff and this is the first game for four of our players, Patenaude, Alexander, A.J. Howard and Marion Beauchamp,” Price said. “But I like this team. I think we’re as athletic as we’ve ever been.”

“We’ve got a lot of players that have developed and we have a solid transfer from Auburn, A.J. Howard,” Patenaude said. “We’re a fast team; we can outrun them once we get out there.”

“Our team strength is attacking the basket and going one-on-one against other teams,” Price said. “We’ve got go kick-out shooters.”

Now, according to Price, the task is to get the team to start playing as a team and leave a brutal pre-season behind them.

“I think we’re as good as a third-place team or as bad as a sixth-place team,” he said. “It’s been a tumultuous pre-season, with the injuries and with Michael’s situation.”

“We have the talent to compete, we’re just not there yet,” Patenaude agreed. “We just need to learn to come in as a team.”

The Lions will look to earn their first win of the year at 7 tonight at White River. The team will host Bonney Lake at 7 p.m. next Tuesday.