Stanford, Arizona have Pac-12 riding high in title game
Baylor,” Butler said. “And you have to win national championships. You have to win.
“You have to be a great program, be about great things, and that’s what we’re doing.”
Marcus Sasser had 20 points for the cold-shooting Cougars (28-4), whose dream path to their first Final Four since 1984 — they faced teams seeded 15th, 10th, 11th and 12th along the way — ended with a whimper against a team focused squarely on this night since the moment last year’s tournament was canceled because of the pandemic.
For Drew, the wait had been even longer.
He took over a program 18 years ago embroiled in arguably the biggest controversy in the history of the sport: the graphic shooting death of player Patrick Dennehy, his teammate Devon Dotson pleading guilty to his murder, attempts by then-coach Dave Bliss to cover it all up, and NCAA sanctions that lasted well into Drew’s own tenure.
Yet somehow, the son of longtime Valpo coach Homer Drew always pictured the very scene that unfolded Saturday night: His team playing selflessly, almost effortlessly, never once feeling the pressure of college basketball’s biggest stage.
Well, there were a few things Drew probably didn’t picture.
Instead of 70,000 fans reaching to the rafters, the Bears were cheered in the lower bowl by thousands of cardboard cutouts — from the late Georgetown coach John Thompson to New Mexico State mascot Pistol Pete — due to measures against COVID-19 that have forced them to live in a bubble for the last three weeks.
The roughly 8,000 fans that were allowed through the doors, socially distanced in a vast ocean of blue seats, provided a muted soundtrack to the blowout inside the cavernous home of the Indianapolis Colts.
The only cheering? That came from those in green and gold.
The Bears controlled the game from the jump, unleashing an early 14-3 run fueled by the crisp passing, silky shooting and dastardly defense that made them unbeatable before a 23-day COVID-19 pause late in the regular season.
When the Cougars finally scored, the Bears ripped off another 16-3 run later in the first half, carving up the nation’s top three-point field-goal defense with ruthless efficiency.
SAN ANTONIO
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 different schools in the Final Four since 2013, but none reached the title game until Friday night 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 Pac-12 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 lastsecond 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 5-6 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.
Arizona lost twice to Stanford during the regular season, but both teams are much improved from their last meeting on Feb. 22 that the Cardinal won 62-48.
“What’s on our side is it’s hard to beat a team three times in a season,” Barnes said.
“We’re a lot better and so is Stanford. Speaking about us, we’re shooting the ball better, defending better and playing better basketball than when we played them.”