March 30, 2005

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Palo Alto Online

A mission statement for Stanford

by Pat Sangimino

Call it a quest. Or a crusade. In any words, the top-ranked Stanford women's basketball team appears on a mission to prove to the NCAA selection committee that it erred in not making the Cardinal a No. 1 seed.

On Tuesday night, No. 2-seeded Stanford met No. 1 seed Michigan State in the finals of the Kansas City Regional in Kansas City, Mo.

And if you understand the contradiction of all that, the wackiness of a seeding faux pas that actually put the nation's top-ranked team into a No. 2 slot in the bracket, you might begin to comprehend what motivates the Cardinal these days.

In three tournament games, the Cardinal have won by an average of nearly 27 points. Included in those victories is a 76-59 win over Connecticut in the Kansas City Regional semifinals Sunday night that halted the Huskies' run of national championships at three and their streak of 20 straight NCAA victories.

Yet, Stanford will admit to none of the above. Seeding, the Cardinal says, means little. No matter where you are in the brackets, they add, you're going to be facing a pretty good team this time of year.

Michigan State (31-3) is a very good team. The Spartans showed that earlier Sunday by overcoming a seven-point halftime deficit to beat Vanderbilt, 76-64.

"We just want to keep playing," said senior guard Susan King Borchardt, who scored 16 points against UConn. "It doesn't matter who we play."

But UConn? In the Sweet 16? This was a made-for-TV matchup. Two storied programs, each with a collection of household names to college basketball fans. There's Diana Taurasi and Jennifer Azzi. Sue Bird and Kate Starbird. Rebecca Lobo and Olympia Scott.

The Huskies might have been a No. 3 seed - another farce by the selection committee, some say - but they were not an underdog on Sunday.

No team that has had so much success and has dominated the sport for so long is ever an underdog. This run has allowed the Huskies to walk with a collective swagger that often times is the difference in close games.

The UConn Mystique, it's called.

But Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer refused to give it any credence this week. She denounced it before the game and once the king - or queen, as it were - of women's college basketball was dethroned in convincing fashion, went out of her way once again not to acknowledge it.

"We had a sign on our (locker room) door that said, 'Mystique. What number is she?'" VanDerveer said. "It's not a real thing. It wasn't a real part of this game."

The Cardinal didn't bust any ghosts. It didn't exorcise any demons. No. 2-seeded Stanford (32-2) was just a better team and - in the second half - a far more physical one.

"Seeds don't matter and neither does what happened last year," King Borchardt said.

Or the year before that. Or the year before that.

In other words, the Huskies' three straight tourney crowns meant little inside historical Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Mo., the birthplace of the NCAA tournament which features a few ghosts of its own.

There was no UConn Mystique, VanDerveer said.

Mystique can't hit the jump shot. Mystique doesn't box out or set a precise screen. No, Mystique doesn't win you a national championship.

Players do that and VanDerveer knew from the outset that this might have been the first time in many years that UConn didn't have that one player - a Lobo, Bird or a Taurasi, the face most commonly attached to the Huskies' run of three national crowns - who could take over a game.

"This is not a national championship team that it was with Diana Taurasi," VanDerveer said. "It is hard to ask a team to be national champion. What they did - three straight national championships - is incredible, but I don't feel like we were playing against a ghost team."

That point could have been debated the last 10 minutes of the first half. Even without that one standout player wearing UConn blue, it appeared Stanford might be overmatched - that it might not be able to match the Huskies, blow for blow. Elbow for elbow.

UConn scored the final seven points of the first half to take a four-point lead into the intermission.

"It was a little frustrating," said freshman Candice Wiggins, the Pac-10 Player of the Year who had five first-half turnovers. "I was getting rushed and it was leading to turnovers."

UConn coach Geno Auriemma said his team's defensive game plan had a lot to do with Stanford's first-half frustration.

"We did some things I thought could keep them off balance," he said. "They never knew where our traps were coming from. They had a difficult time getting into any rhythm offensively."

VanDerveer challenged her team at halftime. She warned her players they had to become more physical. Their toughness was challenged and it was up to them to step up or go home.

They chose the former.

"We decided we weren't ready to go home," said King Borchardt, who hit a pair of huge 3-pointers in the second half. "We are having too much fun this year. We want to keep playing."

That's all it took. They began locking down the key. They forced 16 turnovers and made UConn earn everything it got. There were no more easy baskets.

"What you saw in the second half was us battling with them," Smith said. "UConn was a very physical team. We just needed to battle with them."

The game was tied at 43 with 11 minutes to play, but Stanford outscored UConn 33-16 the rest of the way to live to fight another day.

UConn made one final run at the lead, whittling a nine-point deficit to five with about five minutes to play, but King Borchardt hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key to end any doubt.

"This is such a special feeling," King Borchardt said. "We're all so excited . . . We came here to win two games."

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