AMHERST - At Friday's University of Massachusetts men's basketball media day, coach Derek Kellogg revealed what will likely be his team's starting five when the Minutemen open the season Friday at 9 p.m. against Elon at Curry Hicks Cage.

Returning starters Javorn Farrell and Sean Carter will be joined by sophomore transfer Chaz Williams at point guard. Freddie Riley will replace graduated Anthony Gurley at shooting guard, while Raphiael Putney takes over at forward. Kellogg said that was his starting lineup in last week's closed scrimmage against Drexel.

"That's who we started and it will probably be similar to start the season," Kellogg said.

Terrell Vinson, who has started 61 of 62 games during his career, will come off the bench in that alignment, but Kellogg went out of his way to praise Vinson and Carter.

"Terrell Vinson and Sean Carter have been phenomenal in practice," Kellogg said. "Their attitudes and their ability to push through fatigue and buying into whatever I need has been as good as I've seen as a coach out of those guys."

That five won't be UMass' starters in Saturday's scrimmage at Seton Hall as Carter tweaked his hamstring in Thursday's practice. Kellogg said it wasn't considered major, but he'll miss a few days to ensure his participation next week. Senior Matt Hill will start in his place.

"Matt Hill is a senior and he has done a helluva job mentoring and playing hard in practice and helping a bunch of different guys," Kellogg said.

Kellogg added the new up-tempo running and pressing style likely means using a deeper rotation.

SETON HALL - The Minutemen's final preseason tune-up is Saturday when they travel to Seton Hall for a closed scrimmage. The Pirates, who finished 13-18 last year, were picked 13th in the Big East preseason poll.

"Anytime you play a Big East team in a scrimmage, trying to out-athletecize and run them into submission probably isn't going to happen," Kellogg said. "It's a good test, if we're not able to press them or turn them over, can we play basketball with a team that's a borderline NCAA tournament team? I think that will be a good barometer. I'm looking forward to it and seeing how my team will respond."

NEW NUMBERS - Three of the four members of UMass' junior class changed their jersey numbers. Farrell switched from 10 to 0, Riley from 24 to 4 and Vinson from 2 to 33. Carter, a senior, switched from 23 to 54.

Farrell wanted 21, his high school number, but UMass has stopped giving out that number, a likely indication that it someday intends to retire it for Marcus Camby.

"One of my friends plays basketball at Kansas and he told me to wear 0," said Farrell, who is close with Kansas' Thomas Robinson, who wears No. 0 for the Jayhawks. "So I wore it. At the end of last year I said it was time for a change. I thought changing my number would be a good start to it. We all said it was time for a change."

Vinson wanted 32, which is retired twice for Julius Erving and George Burke, and 33 was the closest to it. Riley said he didn't have a particular attachment to his new number.

"We felt like this was a fresh start. This is a new opportunity for us to make noise," Riley said. "I just looked at the list and it was the only number available that appealed to me."

Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. Follow UMass coverage on Twitter at twitter.com/GazetteUMass. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at http://www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage.