MARYVILLE, Mo. — Basketball comes down to a confidence game this season for the Missouri Western and Northwest Missouri State women’s basketball teams.

Both teams collapsed last season, and now the two coaches trying to restore the programs — Lynn Plett at Western and Gene Steinmeyer at Northwest — say this season comes down to the players’ faith in themselves.

“We’ve got to restore confidence in our program,” said Steinmeyer, whose Bearcats went just 9-18 overall and 5-15 in the MIAA. “Two years ago, we won the conference tournament. Then when we stepped on the court last year, that was the most talented team I ever coached at Northwest, and we won nine games.”

Last season was the first time in seven years that the Bearcats failed to qualify for the MIAA postseason tournament.

The Bearcats face plenty of turnover as they attempt to rebound.

Leaders like Meghan Brue, Rickeya McElroy and Jessica Burton are gone.

“Even I don’t know a lot about this team,” Steinmeyer said. “We’ve got some really crucial returners that nobody’s seen.”

That includes Gentry Dietz, a 6-foot-2 junior transfer from Southern Illinois. Dietz, a post player, transferred to Northwest last year but sat out the season because of a torn anterior cruciate ligament.

Abby Henry also struggled with a knee injury last season. Steinmeyer said 2008-09 was mostly a recovery year for Henry, who played increasingly better as the season went on.

“Those two really hold the key to the season for us,”

Steinmeyer said.

Sophomore guard Shelly Martin, who averaged 7.7 points, returns. And another new guard, Gabby Curtis from Cowley County Community College, should contribute immediately.

“I think she really has a lot of untapped potential,” Steinmeyer said. “She really can score, too. I think you’ll see her and

Abby on the floor quite a bit at the same time.”

Two other significant addition come from the same family: sisters Alexis and Candace Boeh, 6-1 post players.

“They’re not flashy,” Steinmeyer said, “but boy, they work their tails off.”

Western faces the same struggle in self-confidence but from a slightly different direction. The Griffons took their infusion of new blood last season — when they added 11 new players and had just five returners — and suffered through a 6-21 season.

This year, all the key players return, and Plett added just four new players.

The critical factor Plett pointed to for this group is how the Griffons execute his spread offense. Last year, the team struggled to find players who were willing to step up and take shots or create opportunities.

“Last year, we lacked the confidence in being able to aggressively attack the basket,” Plett said. “That was the glaring weakness. This year, we’ve just been trying to build the kids up and telling them it’s OK to make mistakes. We need to get past that hesitancy.”

Plett said he’s seen progress in offseason workouts, and junior Rachel Luteyn noted the same improvement.

“We’ve been trying to avoid eating up the whole 24 seconds on the shot clock and then just throwing something up,” said Luteyn, who averaged 8.4 points per game last year. “Throughout the preseason, we’ve been trying to not turn down shots. It’s gotten better.

“And in those last couple of weeks last year, we proved to ourselves that we can play together and be a team. We all want to build off that, and we think this year can be a year we can surprise a lot of teams.”

Along with Luteyn, the Griffons expect important contributions from returning starters Jessica Koch, Tierra Ford and Lauren Nolke.

That returning core and experience — something the Griffons lacked nearly completely last year — is a big reason for optimism, Plett said. The Griffons also will add in junior-transfer Kathryn Clouser, a 5-10 guard who Plett said “can put the ball on the floor, penetrate and create some things, and she’s even more athletic than I realized.”

“But really the key is we definitely have things in place, players in place who we’re much more familiar with and know what their strengths are,” Plett said. “Now comes the challenge of seeing how much we can improve. The exciting part is let’s see how impressive we can be.”