It had to be a case of deja vu for the Utah State women's basketball team in 2005-06.
Just three years ago, the university brought back women's basketball after nearly a two-decade absence.
That year, the Aggies, and first-year coach Raegan Pebley, went 5-22 overall and 3-15 in Big West Conference play and earned a berth into the conference tournament.
Two years later, as first-year members in the Western Athletic Conference, the Aggies, who went 14-14 overall in their final season in the Big West, finished 3-24 and 2-14 in league play.
The Aggies were 0-5 before beating Utah Valley State College, a Division I independent, for their first win of the season. They would go almost two months before beating New Mexico State for their second win. After beating Idaho for their third win, the Aggies lost six straight games to end the year.
Utah State lost a total of seven games by 10 points or less and lost six more by 19 points or more. During their final eight games, though, the Aggies lost by an average of 18.4 points, and their closest loss was 11 to Idaho in the play-in game of the Western Athletic Conference tournament.
In order to prepare themselves for Western Athletic Conference play, the Aggies played a very aggressive preseason with games with Illinois, Colorado, Wyoming, Air Force and Saint Louis. In retrospect, it may have been a little too tough.
"It was really difficult," Pebley said. "We needed to play some of those games for different reasons, and there were some of those teams that ended up having great years — better years that we expected."
The Aggies lose three seniors, including their top scorers and rebounders and top shot-blocker. Ali Marchant led the team with 9.5 points and 6.1 rebounds, while Jessica Freeman tallied 8.6 points and 5.7 rebounds while blocking a team-high 48 shots. They were the only two players on the team to shoot 50 percent or better from the field.
Ashley Rutledge, who started 14 games, average 5.2 points in her final campaign.
"Their (the seniors') leadership was incredible, especially considering the difficult situation they led the team through," Pebley said. "They helped build a program from scratch and took a program in its infancy into a conference like the WAC."
Utah State, however, returns three solid guards in Danyelle Snelgro, Taylor Richards and Camille Brox. Richards and Snelgro started 17 games and averaged 8.1 and 4.7 points, respectively, while Brox started 16 games and averaged 2.3 points.
Jenny Gross led the team with 22 returns, and Brittany Hagen led the team in three-point field goal percentage (37.6 percent).
Veteran Brittany Tressler saw limited time (15.8 minutes per game) and returns with freshmen Ana Pares and Lindsey Freeze. Anne-Marie Torp, who had offseason heart surgery, also returns after averaging just 5.4 minutes last year.
As a team, the Aggies averaged 55.9 points a game compared with 67.3 scored by their opponents. They shot just 37.6 percent from the field (29.4 percent from the three-point line).
"That's something we have got to improve — our offensive efficiency. It puts way too much pressure on the defense," Pebley said. "I think the big thing we learned about is there are many more skilled athletes in this conference than in the Big West. They were basketball players that are athletic, and they can capitalized on that with their defensive pressure."
The Aggies signed four players in the early signing period — post Nicole Johnson (6-foot-2), post Caitlin Kearns (6-4), forward Indira Kalio (5-10) and guard LeeAnn Palo (5-8) — and they are expecting to sign more next week.
E-mail: jhinton@desnews.com