In prior years, perhaps
we did not see any obvious "rebuilding" during the season, however maybe there were a number of small rebuilding stages that the teams went thru
after these parts of the season:
1 - summer workouts and/or EU trip
2 - Non-conference games/holiday tourney/end of year games
3 - BE games
4 - BE tourney
5 - NCAA tourney
Each of these phases is different, and after each, the coaches have to prepare for the next section, with the ultimate prep to the NCAA tourney. However, each time there is a significant time/season ending injury, the coaches have to redo lineups/sub patterns. So this year, the team looked a certain way during #1, then Jana gets hurt, so prep for the #2 period changes. Before they can finish #2, Azzi is out, so it was on the fly for the MD/MN games and a short window to prep for UCLA/KS. This week may be used to rebuild for the four non-con games (TX, Ball St, UNC, L'ville).
Moving onto #3, rebuilding may take place for the BE season b/w end of Dec and March 2, with a sprinkling on non-con games vs ND & S Carolina. These latter two games may act like a litmus test of "where are we" and "what do we need to do for the NCAAT.
Normally (and maybe we've not seen that since prior to the 2019-20 season), there's some tinkering on matchups, sub pattern, however in the past it was pretty set based on the lack of surprises. And now? Caroline & Ayanna are day to day, Azzi is out, so the expected constant of starters/subs is less known.