Run brings back memories
I may have barely figured out how to navigate from my dorm to my classes, but it didn’t take very long into freshman year for me to find my way to Stanford’s historic Maples Pavilion. It was mid-November 2014, and the No. 6 Cardinal were hosting UConn. The UConn, the defending national champions. I had stumbled onto an opportunity to call women’s basketball games for the student radio broadcast and showed up to a game expecting a blowout.
It ended up being far from it.
No. 6 Stanford took down the No. 1 Huskies 88-86 in an overtime thriller that snapped UConn’s 47-game winning streak. As the buzzer sounded, UConn failing to get a last shot off with 2.6 seconds on the clock, I had a total freshman journalist moment. Forgetting I was on a live radio call and supposed to be an objective journalist, I stood up and started jumping up and down as if I were part of the crowd.
Of course, UConn would go on to win the national title that year. And the one after that, and the one after that. Stanford, meanwhile, would fall in the Sweet 16 and wouldn’t get back to the Final Four until 2017, Tara VanDerveer’s quest for a third national title still unfulfilled. I would keep my eye on the Cardinal as I continued through school, but it’d take me a few years to find my way back to the sport.
All that changed in 2021 in
San Antonio. Both Stanford and UConn, the team I now cover full time, made the Final Four. School friends, readers and even Geno Auriemma teased me about UConn and Stanford’s potential national championship matchup. UConn’s disappointing finish ensured it wasn’t meant to be.
But this weekend was Stanford’s time. The Cardinal took home the program’s third national title, and first since 1992, in a 54-53 championship win over Arizona.
Nothing was easy for the Cardinal Sunday, though nothing has been these last few decades. There have been countless opportunities to cut down the nets well before 2021. But as VanDerveer said Sunday, they must have had some special karma that had veered them away from titles and to heartbreak.
Jayne Appel played the 2010 national championship game — coincidentally against UConn, in San Antonio — on a broken foot. Karlie Samuelson, sister of Katie Lou, hurt an ankle in the 2017 national semifinal game, changing the tide for the eventual national-champion Gamecocks to prevail.
This year, VanDerveer admitted her team dodged a few bullets to advance: The Cardinal had to overcome a double-digit deficit against Louisville in the Elite Eight. In the national semifinal, they were down early against South Carolina and later nearly lost at the buzzer, with the Gamecocks blowing two closerange shots. Then there was the Aari McDonald shot that didn’t fall for Arizona.
“I just think sometimes, you’ve got to be lucky,” VanDerveer said. “I’ll admit it; we were fortunate. We were fortunate to win.”
On Sunday, Stanford had 21 turnovers but a final defensive stand — McDonald’s 3-point heave just barely missing — was enough to bring the trophy back to Palo Alto, Calif.
“We won this for all of the great players that’ve played at Stanford,” VanDerveer said.
Behind the fruits of a recruiting renaissance, the Cardinal aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, either: Final Four Most Outstanding Player Haley Jones is just a sophomore, standout post Cameron Brink a freshman. Then there’s Lauren Betts, the
No. 1 player in the Class of 2022, is headed to Palo Alto. Neither are the Huskies, who’ll bring in No. 1 2021 recruit Azzi Fudd. Neither is me, who thanks to that Nov. 2014 game in Maples has fallen in love with this sport and found my way back to covering it.
Perhaps one day we’ll finally get that UConn-Stanford title match after all.