The first tent popped up outside Maples Pavilion on October 4 -- nearly two weeks before tickets for the men's basketball season went on sale. Within days, a full-fledged tent city had sprouted, populated by fraternity pledges, med students and a big chunk of the freshman class. Among the amenities they carted across campus: stereo systems, kegs of beer, a Foosball table and a big-screen TV.
At Duke or Kentucky this might not be unusual. But at Stanford -- where in 1991 a mere 1,985 faithful fans rattled around Maples during a home opener? Before long, the orderly queue outside the stadium turned ragged as people began bartering for better spots in line. "There was no longer a linear representation" of who was where, says Jamie Zaninovich, the team's marketing director.
On Day Seven of the camp-out, athletics department staff approached the students with a proposal to put an end to the waiting. The solution: a lottery to divvy up 450 season tickets in the upper section and 750 places in the coveted Sixth Man Club, where students don red shirts and stand courtside for the entire game, stomping their feet and taunting the other team. Some of the students were disappointed. An estimated 1,600 did time in the tent city; only 1,200 student tickets were available.
That sort of squeeze is something Stanford fans will have to get used to this year. After years -- no, decades -- of middling play, men's basketball has hit the big time. The entire starting lineup and most of the bench has returned from last season's team, which finished 30-5 and made it to the NCAA Final Four, losing by just one point in overtime to eventual national champion Kentucky.
The frenzy has barely let up since last spring. Coach Mike Montgomery was invited to assist at Michael Jordan's fantasy basketball camp in Las Vegas over the summer. Montgomery, who five years ago couldn't give away seats in the press box, now sets aside an hour each day for media interviews. To rally the fans, the team's first practice was held at midnight and was open to the public. Suddenly, Stanford's 7,391-seat arena was sold out for the November 14 home opener -- and every other home game. As the season started, Stanford found itself at the top of the polls. Point guard Arthur Lee graced the November 23 cover of Sports Illustrated, which ranked Stanford No. 1.
Led by Lee and fellow All-American hopefuls Mark Madsen and Tim Young, this year's squad includes 10 players who averaged more than 10 minutes a game last year. They are tall (averaging 6-foot-6, with seven who are 6-foot-7 or taller), they have a contingent of excellent three-point shooters and they play strong defense.
Can the Cardinal live up to the high expectations? The men crushed several early opponents before struggling to defeat No. 23 St. John's and then falling to ninth-ranked North Carolina in a Thanksgiving weekend tournament in New York's Madison Square Garden. A week later, a high-octane Cardinal club, then ranked No. 5, lost by two points to No. 2 Maryland in a game that had all the drama and excitement of March Madness.
The grueling Pac-10 schedule begins in January. Stanford is favored to finish first, but will face three other highly ranked teams: UCLA, Washington and Arizona. The consensus is that the men will face their biggest challenges against quick, high-pressure teams. Their two big losses last season were to fast UConn and Arizona squads.
Peter Sauer, a junior who plays forward, acknowledges that there are those who believe the Cardinal's main deficiency is its lack of speed. But he downplays the issue, saying, if anything, "a weakness may be the lack of a star player." In a preseason interview, Sauer, the team captain, also spoke of Stanford's new high profile. "We know that every team will be their best against us," he says. "We just want never to beat ourselves. If someone beats us, they should have deserved to win."
You might think the players have bought into the hype surrounding them if you saw a poster in the team locker room. It lists the team's objectives: a Pacific-10 conference championship, a return to the Final Four and the NCAA title. But a similar poster hung there last year, when the goal seemed more farfetched. This year, it seems, everyone believes.
It's a strange twist that the Stanford men are now getting all the attention. Typically the women's squad is nationally ranked and a virtual shoo-in for the Pac-10 title. But the women are regrouping after the graduation of stars like Kristin Folkl, Vanessa Nygaard and Olympia Scott.
With just one returning senior, Regan Freuen, this year marks the first time in a decade that Stanford's women are not predicted to win the conference. Sportswriters picked UCLA instead. Many of the Cardinal players to watch are freshmen like Lindsey Yamasaki, Lauren St. Clair and Cori Enghusen.
The youth shows. Stanford lost three games early on, bounced back with an upset over No. 1 Purdue, and then lost to 15th-ranked Texas Tech and Santa Clara. The schedule is characteristically competitive, including teams like Tennessee and UCLA.
Don't count Stanford out. In 1988-89, the last season the women's team wasn't picked to win the Pac-10, they went 18-0 in the conference, won the championship and made it to the NCAA tournament's Elite Eight. With the women's Final Four set to take place just down Highway 101 in San Jose, they'd like nothing better than to play for the home crowd. Just as the men, too, hope to make it to St. Petersburg, Fla., for their second consecutive Final Four appearance. If they do, expect to see more tents.
