Many coaches can get their preferred number of players, whether it be 10 or 12 or 14/15.

Then, they'd see how it all shakes out in practice, individually and/or collectively. From that they'd play certain numbers of them in the out-of-conference schedule and use that to whittle down to a certain number in crunch games/times.

To paraphrase, Carly Simon, "..that's the way I always heard it should be."

In the days of the portal, doing this is the anti-retention tool: kids want to play (for a variety of reasons - AAU exceptionalism, pro projections, NIL). If they don't, out of here.

Dawn finds she has a certain amount of good players and sticks to playing them -- the whole dang season. And while she has a few key pieces, different players led the team at different times. Her step-change -- keep playing all the good ones -- was the key.

Now, she was blessed with good health last year, too; something Niele and Geno were not. But if you're aiming to get nothing but top-shelf players, why not use them? It helps all concerned.