Defend and rebound. That was the game plan from Day One. That--and stay injury-free.
"The number-one thing for us is to have both Susan [King] and Jamie [Carey] healthy," women's basketball coach Tara VanDerveer said at the beginning of the season. With four returning starters and five talented freshmen, Cardinal hopes for the postseason were high. In the last 16 years, VanDerveer has led Stanford to two national titles and six Final Fours.
But it was not to be, this season. First, point guard Carey, '03, who has a history of recurring concussions dating to seventh grade, collided with another player in an October practice session, forcing her to retire. Then King, one of the top high school point guards in the nation, blew out her knee when she was fouled, hard, in December by a University of Oklahoma player--a run-in VanDerveer called "avoidable and unnecessary."
The team rebounded with spirit, as Carey cheered from the bench and King stalked the sidelines on crutches. Freshman forward Nicole Powell, an all-around athlete who competed in tennis, badminton, shotput and discus in high school, donned a lucky headband and transformed herself into a point guard--at 6-foot-2. In a February game against Washington State, she turned in the third double-double in Stanford history: 10 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists. In March, Powell was named Pac-10 Freshman of the Year.
Other players, including juniors Bethany Donaphin, Enjoli Izidor and Lindsey Yamasaki, gave it their best shots as well, and Stanford shared the Pac-10 championship with Washington and Arizona State. As March Madness began, sports columnists speculated about the revenge match to come, trailing the 10th-seeded Cardinal back to Norman, Okla., the scene of King's injury.
The Cardinal whumped George Washington in the opening round of the NCAAs, 76-51. And it became clear that junior center Cori Enghusen had drawn a new line in the paint as a post player, blocking most of the shots that came her way. But two days later, the team fizzled and lost to second-seeded Oklahoma, 67-50.
Still, VanDerveer told the San Francisco Chronicle, "I am proud of this team for being here because we battled." Battled and rebounded.
