Togetherness, love for ‘TDawg’ lifted Cardinal
Jack Kerouac would have loved the Stanford women, who know how to make the best of a long, lonesome, adlib road trip.
Being locked out of your home gym for nine weeks by pandemic restrictions, from early December to early February, is no standard recipe for success, but good chefs figure it out.
“We were practicing in the dark,” said freshman forward Cameron Brink, of Stanford’s temporary practice digs, a Santa Cruz high school gym with dim lighting and no heat. “It was freezing in that gym, but we’re thankful we had a gym to practice. It made us tougher.”
What emerged as the long, strange season unfolded was a group that coach Tara VanDerveer calls one of her favorite teams ever.
Here are seven defining moments of Stanford’s season:
⏩ T-Dawg gets the record (Dec. 15)
Stanford’s easy 10461 win over Pacific was VanDerveer’s 1,099th win as a Division I women’s coach, a national record she started building 42 seasons earlier.
The highlight of the postgame oncourt celebration was senior guard Kiana Williams presenting VanDerveer with a black jacket with “TDAWG” in large letters on the back, a nickname Williams gave her coach.
Silly, maybe. But also symbolic.
“They really wanted to win for me,” VanDerveer said. “I felt it the whole game. I felt it on the bus ride here . ... I want to be a coach that our players want as a coach. I want to be someone that they want to play hard for, that they want to work hard for, and they want to please. That’s my goal all the time, to be a great coach for them. ... I’m really excited that they were excited and happy for me.”
⏩ The first real game (Dec. 21)
VanDerveer, as much as any coach in bigtime college sports, likes to schedule tough nonconference opponents, eschewing cupcakes. But this season that was hard to do. Going into their game at UCLA, Stanford had beaten its first six foes by an average of 48.2 points, and three of its nonconference games had been canceled. The Cardinal needed a game. The No. 10 Bruins gave ’em one, outscoring Stanford 1410 in the second quarter, and forcing 16 turnovers, before losing a nailbiter (by Stanford standards) 6149.
The game featured sophomore forward Fran Belibi’s second dunk of the season.
⏩ Down goes Stanford! Down goes Stanford! (Jan. 17)
Stanford swaggered into Colorado’s gym with an 110 record and a No. 1 national ranking, and staggered out wearing a 7772 overtime defeat. The Buffaloes came into the game with a 56 record.
Anna Wilson missed a layup with five seconds left in overtime, a shot that would have tied the game 7474.
“I hope this really bothers people and gets under their skin and they decide we want to play basketball at a different level,” VanDerveer said.
How deep under the Cardinal skin did this loss dig? Well ...
⏩ Reality check, please (Jan. 22)
Five nights after their first loss, Stanford, downgraded to No. 5 nationally, hosted the No. 6 UCLA Bruins, at Stanford’s homeawayfromhome court in Santa Cruz. UCLA won 7066. Silver lining? VanDerveer, shocked that her team was beaten on the boards 4431, made a key change for the next game, moving 6foot4 freshman Cameron Brink into the starting lineup in place of the 61 Belibi.
The next game, a 27point win over USC, the longarmed Brink had nine rebounds and three blocks.
⏩ Steel sharpens steel (Feb. 15)
VanDerveer brought elitelevel women’s college basketball to the West Coast, and eventually the rising tide she created lifted other boats. Oregon’s, for instance. The Ducks have become a power program, and in this game, they pushed Stanford to the end before losing 6361.
It was an important lateseason tuneup — and a reminder that Stanford no longer dominates West Coast hoops just by showing up.
“We need games like this,” said Williams, who led the Cardinal with 20 points. “Close games. This was like a tournament atmosphere game.”
⏩ Back to the top (Feb. 22)
Stanford’s 6248 win over No. 9 Arizona cliched the Cardinal’s first regularseason Pac12 title since 2014.
“I’m glad I was wearing my mask,” VanDerveer said, referring to the team’s postgame celebration on the floor. “I have to say I get a little emotional because it’s such a great thing that this team has accomplished . ... I’m really proud of the sisterhood. They really care about each other, the unselfishness.”
⏩ The big showdown, followed by a basketball game (March 30)
The morning of Stanford’s tournament game against Louisville to determine which team would advance to the Final Four, Hannah Jump and Lexie Hull squared off at the team hotel to decide the champion of the team’s pingpong tournament. Jump won the ferocious battle, as teammates provided dramatic tableside commentary, using a shampoo bottle as a mic.
Then the Cardinal walked into a buzzsaw. Louisville led by 12 midway through the third quarter, when VanDerveer made a key substitution, sending 65 sophomore Ashten Prechtel into the game.
Prechtel, who rode the pine the entire first half, turned in a performance for the ages. In 16 minutes, she scored 16 points on perfect shooting — 6for6, including 3for3 on 3pointers — and had four assists, three rebounds and two blocks.
“For sure, it was tough not to play in the first half,” Prechtel said, adding, “I was nervous.”