The Jefferson City Lady Jays have been here before - starting a season with multiple key players out with injuries.
They made the best of it last season, finishing with a record of 25-4. And they look to do that again, starting with tonight's season opener at Francis Howell.
"It's the next player up," Jefferson City coach Brad Conway said. "A lot of girls are getting reps, there are opportunities there for them to show us what to do.
"We're going to look at is as a positive."
Jefferson City, ranked No. 3 in the Class 5 preseason poll by the Missouri Basketball Coaches Association released Monday, will start the season with junior starting post player Micah Linthacum (back) and freshman Hannah Nilges (hip) out for indeterminate amounts of time.
"We don't expect people to come in and give us exactly what the person who is out would give us," Conway said. "We just need to play our game, play together on both ends.
"Girls are going to get playing time, help us to build some chemistry and build up the strength of our bench for later in the season."
That's exactly what happened last season as Jefferson City made a deep postseason run that ended with a loss to Kirkwood in the Class 5 quarterfinals.
"The kids would like to get back to have another opportunity where we finished last year," Conway said. "It's a nice goal to have, but it's one game at time right now.
"There are a lot of steps before we could get to that point. We can't look four months ahead."
Caitlin Anderson, a junior, will lead the Lady Jays. Anderson is back for her third season as Jefferson City's starting point guard.
"She had some growing pains as a freshman and made some big strides last year," Conway said. "She's has a great grasp on what we're trying to do out there, she's our quarterback on both ends of the floor.
"She's become more vocal, taking on that leadership role."
Ileah Chambly, a senior, and junior Greta Haarmann also return as starters. They were two of the players that missed much of the first month of last season with injuries.
Chambly provides another strong presence inside for the Lady Jays.
"She's healthy and has a great chance to have a good season," Conway said.
Haarmann is a strong inside-outside player on the offensive end.
"When she came back, she was a good player for us," Conway said.
Tori LePage, who sat out last season, returns for her senior season and will start at a guard spot.
"She does a lot of good things on both ends of the floor," Conway said. "She's really a spark plug and will be a big help to this team.
"She brings a great energy, she can go and go and go."
Sarah Linthacum, a freshman, will start in the post.
Among the players coming off the bench are juniors Marshi Baird and Rebecca Johanns, along with freshman Kara Daly.
"I really like our athleticism," Conway said. "Chemistry, adding some young kids to our varsity, will be where we're taking some small steps.
"They're giving good effort, it's just a matter of getting some playing time where we're at."
But that time is a little shorter as Conway enters his third season as head coach.
"Instead of it taking a week or more to work on it, it's been just a couple days of refreshers and we're going," he said. "The concepts and principles are the same from the first year and second year.
"With our combinations, we can do a variety of things."
And that will come to full fruition when everyone is healthy and back on the court.
"We're going to be pretty athletic and long," Conway said. "Our inside-outside game will be strong, it's just a matter of getting everybody healthy."
Injuries or not, Jefferson City knows the start of the season can pay dividends at the end.
"The girls know the expectations are high," Conway said. "We want to be playing our best at the end of the season, we just need to make the most of our time before then.
"The mix of veterans and young kids, there's the chance to have a successful season. It's getting the kids used to playing together, we know we're going to make mistakes, we just need to learn from them and move on to the next play."
Today's varsity game is slated for a 7 p.m. start in St. Charles. After a game Monday at Rolla, Jefferson City will open its home schedule next Tuesday night against Kickapoo.