Three seniors poised to lead youthful USU women’s hoops
When examining the Utah State women’s basketball program during the tenure of head coach Jerry Finkbeiner, a highly cyclical pattern becomes apparent in the 30-year basketball veteran’s struggle to keep the Aggies relevant in the Mountain West.
Every time a breakthrough appears imminent, the pieces crumble and Finkbeiner is forced to start from scratch. Again. Most coaches assume they’ll bring back their top, non-graduating players and build on the previous season’s success. Finkbeiner hasn’t been able afford that simple assumption. Since 2014, three of the four players that led the Aggies in scoring for a season transferred away from Logan. The now ninth-year coach at USU said “it’s a sign of the times” that so many players are transferring.
“The transfer is so much easier now,” Finkbeiner said. “There’s no teeth, there’s no accountability, the commitment of staying four years. We just have to adjust to that as a staff.”
This current offseason is but the latest edition of the seemingly endless string of frustrating offseasons. Utah State’s last campaign was somewhat underwhelming and inconsistent with a 17-16 record, but showed significant promise. The Aggies put together an 8-2 mid-season run and claimed wins over Boise State and Wyoming — the teams that finished first and third in the Mountain West standings. USU also took the eventual second-place New Mexico down to the wire in Logan.
“We felt like, going into this next year (we were) knocking on the door,” Finkbeiner said. “So you think with conventional wisdom that ‘OK we’re in the same talking point now, we’ve kind of arrived and this coming year is going to be, we’re in that discussion.”
That ostensibly well-paved path to being a top team in the Mountain West next season didn’t last through the end of spring as four players under Finkbeiner chose to take their talents elsewhere. Three of those — the would-be seniors Shannon Dufficy, Eliza West and Olivia West — were among USU’s top performers of the season.
Shannon Dufficy, a 2018-19 First-Team All-MW selection, led Utah State in minutes, points, rebounds and steals while setting the single-season double-double record at USU.
Dufficy led the Aggies in points, rebounds, steals, minutes and earned First-Team All-MW. She also flirted with being the conference’s Player of the Year at times, being the MW leader in rebounds, it’s third-leading scorer and the only player to average a double-double.
Eliza West became the program’s all-time assist leader late last season and was poised to become the assist queen of Utah State, sitting just 105 dimes behind Oscar Williams’ 562 of the men’s team. Olivia West, though less involved than previous years (she led the team in scoring in 2017-18) was fourth on the team in scoring overall and started 13 games.
The result of this exodus is yet another roster filled with underclassmen. Four freshmen, five sophomores, only two seniors. Just three players on the roster have ever averaged more than 10 minutes per game in a Division I basketball season.
Left to fill the void of team leadership, both on and off the court are the three remaining (or perhaps, surviving) seniors — Hailey Bassett, Lindsey Jensen-Baker and Marlene Aniambossou. And for just all of them, leadership is either a new reality or a figment of days long past in high school.
“I haven’t had much practice with being the leader. I just kind of played,” Bassett said. “The only time I’ve ever experienced being the older one was my senior year of high school.”
Despite lacking the history of being the top girl in college, the idea of Bassett ascending to the role in her final year makes complete sense on paper. Her 1,705 career minutes in Logan dwarfs the next-closest teammate, Steph Gorman (897) and are more than the combined totals of her fellow seniors. That’s saying nothing of her totals in points, rebounds, etc.
“She’s got to have a good senior year for us because she’s probably our most talented player offensively.” Finkbeiner said of Bassett.
Bassett herself is far from ignorant of what these facts mean in terms of expectations in 2019-20, and she’s showing a willingness to move on from her laid-back manner of years past to help her team as best she can.
“I definitely am learning and that’s what I expect for myself is to learn to be louder, something I’ve always struggled with, but I’m getting better at talking, being vocal and now I realize that I’m the senior and I really want the best for this team so I’m going to do everything that I can control.”
While Bassett my very well find herself starring for the Aggies on the court, Jensen-Baker faces a different role in her farewell season. Salvaging the career of the fifth-year veteran is not a realistic expectation. Injuries and a diagnosis with Type 1 Diabetes have left Jensen-Baker with just 275 collegiate minutes to her name. One last hurrah in the form of playing a complete season will make the departure easier, but there’s a bit more to it for the 5-foot-9 guard.
“I’m a local girl. I’m not going to stop coming to games,” Jensen-Baker said. “I’ll still be in the stands, even if I’m not playing but I do want to see them do well. These are girls that I’ve grown up with, my five years in college, and I’ve really grown to have good friendships and so I obviously want the best for them.
Marlene Aniambossou displayed a high level of athleticism, but in small bursts, playing just 8.7 minutes per game in 2018-19
The final name on the short list of seniors, Aniambossou, is a bit of a wild card. Finkbeiner believes in the junior college transfer, but she also struggled mightily last season to meet the expectations her coach has for her. Should Aniambossou rise to the occasion, it could be the difference between mediocrity and challenging the top teams in the conference.
“Marlene is probably the biggest key for our season initially,” Finkbeiner said. “Marlene’s our best athlete. She’s our strongest player, our most aggressive player. She’s a player that can take a hit, give a hit better than anybody on our team.”
Rebuilding is not looked down upon in the realm of sports, but with one year left, the seniors aren’t exactly blessed with time to wait for the younger girls to grow up into mature basketball players. So in lieu of having fellow experienced roster members and highly developed talent, the Aggies are turning to the age-old remedy of a culture change to try and expedite program growth back to at least what it was last season, if not higher.
“Last year I feel like we kind of just showed up and would go through the motions,” Jensen-Baker said. “I feel like the attitude was good at the beginning but as it progressed throughout the season it was kind of just ‘OK, here’s another game.'”
Already established rosters aren’t exactly conducive to major offseason changes, but Utah State doesn’t have that problem. They have a veritable horde of new, young, impressionable ball players ready to do just about anything.
“I feel like the freshman this year that we have already have brought a lot of excitement to our program,” Jensen-Baker said. “They’re ready to play.”
And ready to play they must be. As much as the “ready-or-not” maxim applies to the seniors and veterans, it may apply more harshly to the under-prepared freshman and inexperienced sophomores.
“This group of first-year players coming in were expected (prior to the transfers) to kind of learn on the job, growing up behind experienced player,” Finkbeiner said. “Now X amount of these first-year players are going to step up and statistically contribute.”
As of summer scrimmages, the returns looked good, at least in the eyes of Bassett.
“I see that they are very hard workers,” Bassett said. “And I know that they haven’t had much experience, but I’ve already seen so much improvement. They listen very well, they give full effort and that’s really rare to find.”
In the end, among all the farewell tours for seniors, program-building and individual growth. There’s one underlying goal and this team is chasing it with singular purpose. Jensen-Baker put it best.
“We’re planning to win games this year.”