In reply to: Does Ivey actually prefer a smaller roster? posted by cbiebel
Roster size as USC's Roster size of 14 for the 2022-23 season made it possible for them to field a team that won the 2024 WBB Tournament. I also remember a comment that Staley made about Roster sizes and she said when the NCAA allows you 15 Scholarship Athletes for Womens Basketball why not take full advantage of that and uplift more Women.
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.