We'll see. Bass is not as bad as y'all think she is. Last time we played at Rutgers, she was a starter and played 21 minutes in a game that we came back from a 33-13 deficit at halftime.
She's been delegated to the bench for the last 2.5 years for a couple of reasons. First was Pat's decision to switch to a zone defense...this negated Bass's defensive ability, because she was so small. She doesn't have the speed of Bobbitt or Tameka Johnson who could make up for their size with an incredible ability to hawk other ballhandlers. Stricklen was a foot taller and made our zone huge. On the offensive side of the ball, it allowed us to play our best five players.
When Simmons and Avant arrived last year, we spent most of the time trying to get them accustomed to playing the position..and the same with Massengale this year. Along with Kamiko, it's always been more beneficial to the team to try and develop the other guards with more potential.
Obviously she's not going to be a star for us either as she is limited physically, but she's not "terrible" by any means. She is another true point guard who wants to get her teammates involved. She knows the sets after 3 years of practice, but hopefully now we'll see if she can translate her game when it matters.
Now all of this to say, I think she will still be played in backup capacity but I do think she will contribute meaningful minutes in meaningful games.
Simmons will start, but the only other player who should keep Bass off the floor would be if they decide to play Stricklen at the point again. I hope that's not the case, but it has had its good moments before too.
Like I said though, I'm more worried about Rutgers than I am Stanford. Both are great teams, but I think we match up better with Stanford. I love Glory and Baugh vs the O sisters. They match up pretty well even if you do want to give Stanford the advantage. However, on the perimeter we have a huge advantage even without Massengale, especially at the 2/3 with Stricklen and Spani over Payne and La Rocque. I like Kokenis's game but if Simmons can get her shot to fall, we'll match up well there too. If we can keep Baugh and Johnson on the floor and take advantage of our mismatches on the perimeter, we should win.
Without Massengale at Rutgers, we are going to have to use our size advantage. To do that though, our guards are going to have to get the ball past half court and get it to the bigs in the paint. I'm sure it will be harder than it sounds. Baugh and Johnson have a mismatch over every RU post though, and if we can force them to double-down on them it will open up our shooters. So...if we can take care of the ball, have Johnson and Baugh establish a post presence, and hit our open shots. We should win in Piscataway. Obviously, as always, we will have to rebound and defend.
Of course those are pretty generic game-plans, and we would probably win all of our games if we could do those things. We'll see what happens though. This stretch will tell a lot about our team.
