All season, we’ve seen the Stanford women smiling, laughing, boogeying, having a grand old time as they rolled up 35 wins with just one loss.
That’s all very well and good.
For their Final Four experience, I’d rather see the No. 2-ranked Cardinal snarling, spitting blood, cursing at nothing in particular and tripping old ladies as they try to cross the streets of San Antonio.
Stanford and Oklahoma enact Sun Bowl II on Sunday at the 40,000-seat Alamodome at 4 p.m. The Cardinal hopes it’s a better outcome than Sun Bowl I, when the Stanford football team lost to the Sooners 31-27 in El Paso on Dec. 31.
Easter Sunday celebrates the resurrection of Christ. But, what I want resurrected is a mean streak in the veins of the Stanford bigs. I suggest Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer head south of the border upon touching down in San Antone, picking up the hottest peppers she can pick. VanDerveer should then make a nice hot chili pepper pie for her four bigs — Jayne Appel, Nneka Ogwumike, Kayla Pedersen and Joslyn Tinkle — to devour an hour before they take the floor against the Sooners. Might as well give some of that heartburn recipe to guards Ros Gold-Onwude, Jeanette Pohlen, Melanie Murphy and JJ Hones, too. They’re going to be in for a streetfight trying to slow Sooner guards Danielle Robinson, the whippet from Archbishop Mitty in San Jose, and Nyeshia Stevenson, who prepped at rough-and-tumble McClellan High in gritty Little Rock, Ark.
If the Cardinal backcourt exhibits the kind of “deer-in-the-headlights” tightness it had in Stanford’s zany 55-53 win against Xavier in the Sacramento Regional final, VanDerveer’s troops will be walking the plank at the Riverwalk by 6:30 p.m. Sunday evening.
Pohlen came out of the gate against the Musketeers pouring in her second try from beyond the arc. If you watched it, you saw her catch and shoot without thinking, without aiming. Pohlen didn’t score again until she drove three-quarters court for the winning bucket with a fraction of a second left. She had four assists, but her five of Stanford’s 12 turnovers would have loomed large had the Cardinal suffered heartbreak.
Stanford will beat the Sooners if its guards B) handle the ball and make the good pass; and B) are a threat to score from the outside. If you’re open and balanced, let it fly. It’s better to have a good shot go up than have a turnover by telegraphing a pass to a big.
Pohlen, Gold-Onwude and Hones are a combined 35 percent shooting from beyond the arc. I’d take my chances with that if I’m VanDerveer.
Another key involves the perimeter-oriented Pedersen, who needs to attack the offensive glass, giving Ogwumike and Appel help. Pedersen, who leads the Cardinal in 3-point shooting at 38 percent, also has to be a threat to score, inside and out.
VanDerveer could play the disrespect card. The five-player Associated Press All-America First Team was announced Tuesday and neither of Stanford’s troika of bigs was on it.
Hard to believe that Ogwumike, the Pac-10 player of the year, wasn’t on the first team somewhere. Anyone that watched the Cardinal play this year knows that Ogwumike is one of the top five players in the country. Now it’s her time to show it to the collegiate basketball world. Same goes for Pedersen.
Appel doesn’t need to prove herself. She’ll exit as the greatest all-around center in Stanford history. Appel will leave Stanford as the school’s career record-holder in blocks and rebounds — the Pac-10’s best in the latter category. Appel, to her credit, has played hurt this season after offseason knee surgery. The past month, one can see Appel grimace when she plants on her banged up ankle for a hook shot.
While that’s unfortunate for the Cardinal, it was fortunate that Appel did not go out the way it was looking she would go out in the regional final. She fouled out with 3:58 to play, scoring just eight points, garnering only four rebounds in just 18 minutes on the floor. The fifth foul call on Appel was one of the most horrendous foul calls I have ever witnessed. Appel was ruled to have fouled when she gently put a hand on an Xaver player’s back. Here’s hoping those trio of referees — Lisa Jones, Felicia Grinter and Cameron Inouye — aren’t within 500 miles of San Antonio. They did not distinguish themselves on national television.
So Appel and Stanford were “given a second life,” as VanDerveer said Wednesday. Now let’s see what they can do with it. The pressure should be off. The Cardinal, living on borrowed time, should come out with reckless abandon, taking it to the Sooners from the outset. Stanford can’t expect to pull off a comeback and advance. It will take two A-plus games for Stanford to win its first NCAA title since 1992, but it can be done.
Maybe VanDerveer best double up on those hot chile peppers. She’ll need more for the title game, should Stanford get there on Tuesday.
E-mail John Reid at jreid@dailynewsgroup.com.
