Arizona, Stanford carry Pac-12 banner in title game

The last time that Tara VanDerveer and Stanford were playing for a national championship, the Pac-12 had just 10 schools and the Cardinal were the standard bearer for the conference.

Now 11 years later, the Pac-12 is on top of the women’s basketball world with the Cardinal facing Arizona on Sunday night for the title. The conference is guaranteed its first champion since the Hall of Fame coach and the Cardinal won their last title in 1992.

“I’m really proud of the Pac-12 to have two teams in the national championship game,” VanDerveer said. “You know, this is not something that a lot of people could have imagined ... 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago. And it’s really, really exciting.”

Stanford was last in the

title game in 2010, losing to UConn in the Alamodome — the same building the Cardinal will be playing in on Sunday night. The conference became the Pac-12 a year later after expansion. The league has had six schools in the Final Four since 2013, but none reached the title game until Friday when both Stanford and Arizona advanced.

“In the Pac-12 we’ve been saying all along we have the best teams in the country and to have two Pac-12 teams speaks for itself,” Arizona coach Adia Barnes said. “Stanford won the Pac12 championship and we were second. Both of us in the Final Four and championship game, it means a lot for our conference.”

To get to Sunday night’s game the Cardinal held on to beat South Carolina 66-65 on a basket by Haley Jones with 32 seconds left Friday night. After Jones’ shot but the Cardinal up, Stanford survived two last-second misses by the Gamecocks.

Arizona didn’t need any last-second karma to beat the Huskies 69-59. Wildcats All-America Aari McDonald scored 26 points and the team played stifling defense to put the clamps on UConn

“No one thought we’d win, no one thought we’d be here,” Barnes said. “We don’t care. We believed in each other. We believed, our team believed.”

McDonald has been a huge reason why. The 5-foot-6 guard, who is lightning quick, is one of the rare two-way players in the game who can impact contests on both ends of the court.

Sunday’s game will pit two teams from west of the Mississippi against each other for the first time since 1986.