Setting sights on Final 4
Stanford women’s success lifts all boats in Pac-12
There was amusing banter in the lead-up to the second-round NCAA game at Maples Pavilion between Stanford and Florida Gulf Coast University.
“I hope Steve Kerr will take a couple of their shooters,” Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer said of their opponent, which leads the nation in three-point shots.
“We’ll take ’em!” Kerr texted AP on Sunday (and his decimated team definitely could have used them in the loss to San Antonio on Monday, when they made just 3 of 19 threepoint attempts).
“He can’t have them,” FGCU coach Karl Smesko exclaimed on Twitter.
As promised, FGCU never saw a long shot it wouldn’t take. The full Stephen Curry effect was
on display in the game, as the height-challenged Eagles (no player over 6 feet tall) took 47 three-point attempts, making 17. Along the way, they set an NCAA single-season record for three-pointers made with 431.
But it wasn’t enough to counter the height, skill and homecourt advantage of the Cardinal. Stanford shot the long ball itself, hitting 9 of 17. More significantly, the Cardinal outrebounded the Eagles 52-18.
Stanford is in the Sweet 16 for the 11th consecutive year (heading to Lexington, Ky., for the third straight year). The Cardinal have some familiar company. A quarter of the field is from the Pac-12: Oregon, Oregon State and UCLA also advanced.
“Isn’t that awesome?” VanDerveer asked.
It is. There’s a lot of moaning about the Pac-12’s recent showing in its two men’s revenueproducing sports, and rightfully so. The Pac-12 football teams were abysmal in the bowl season, and three men’s basketball teams flamed out immediately last week in the NCAA Tournament.
But the third revenue-producing sport, the women’s one, is excelling. In three years, the conference has sent 13 teams to the Sweet 16. The Pac-12 has the best record of any conference in the tournament over the past three seasons.
So, take a bow, Tara VanDerveer.
She won’t take any credit, of course.
“Our conference has always been really strong, and we’ve had great teams and great players that have not been recognized,” VanDerveer said. “I just want to give a shout out to (Commissioner) Larry Scott and the Pac-12 Network that have gotten our game on television so the rest of the country can see the great players that we have.
“People thought it was Stanford and nobody else. I don’t think that’s ever been the case. Now there’s opportunities, and people are taking advantage of it.”
But for a long time the conference pretty much was Stanford and nobody else. Every team in the conference has gotten better because they had to or be left in the dust by Stanford and its Hall of Fame coach.
VanDerveer conceded her team has been an impetus, that “we’re everyone’s top rival.” But she has seen the entire conference improve in recent years.
“But more than the top teams, the bottom teams are really good,” she said. “There are no easy games. I like some easy games.”
That last statement, I believe, is patently false. VanDerveer likes hard games. Really hard games. She regularly signs her team up for a blistering preseason schedule. This year it got even more difficult than planned.
In an opening four-team tournament, the Cardinal were supposed to play Louisville (next Friday’s Sweet 16 opponent), but the game was scheduled too late on a Sunday for the team to get back in time for players to make it to class. So Stanford swapped out that game to play top-ranked UConn and lost by 25 points.
Three weeks later, another team pulled out of a scheduled game with Stanford. VanDerveer filled the slot with a road trip to ninth-ranked Baylor and lost by 24 points.
Her team dropped to 6-6, fell out of the rankings and it was actually a question whether Stanford would even make the tournament, where it has been a fixture for 30 years.
“We did fall at the beginning of the season, but in our minds we knew that if we got it together we could be a really good team,” senior guard Brittany McPhee said.
Alanna Smith and the rest of her teammates knew that the brutal schedule could pay dividends.
“Tara says it all the time: Every disappointment is a blessing,” Smith said. “And right now our blessings are coming to us.”
Then came the conference schedule, which the Cardinal used to cruise through, but no more. Along the way, Stanford lost to Arizona State, UCLA, Cal and Oregon. All tournament teams and — as it turns out — two Sweet 16 teams.
“The conference gets you ready for this,” VanDerveer said.
No easy games. And the Pac-12 women are holding up their end of the conference’s reputation.
“Women’s basketball is representing in a really positive way,” VanDerveer said. “It’s exciting.”
Off to the Sweet 16. Again.