College Basketball

Battle Royal

It's always a good idea to keep an eye out for games between the Stanford and Tennessee women's teams. They have played each other in each of the past three seasons, and each year the winner has gone on to win the national title. So there could be no better omen for the third-ranked Cardinal than its 96-95 overtime victory over the top-ranked Lady Vols in Stanford, Calif., last Saturday.

The matchup was more than No. 1 versus No. 3. Tennessee has established itself as a dynasty by winning the NCAA title three times in the past five years, and the Lady Vols are, in many ways, the measuring stick by which Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer assesses the progress of her own program. Three years ago, after Tennessee blew out the Cardinal 83-60, VanDerveer took a tape of the game home at Christmas break and meticulously analyzed it with her sister, Heidi, a former graduate assistant under Lady Vol coach Pat Summitt. "We copied down everything we could. Every move, every play, every idea," VanDerveer says. "Then Tennessee's top assistant called me the next week to say she liked our pregame warmup suits. I'm scrambling to steal everything I can from them, and they want to know where we got our warmups."

Last week the Cardinal stole the game from the Lady Vols with a thrilling comeback. Stanford center Val Whiting, a 6'3" junior, scored 24 of her 26 points after intermission, including nine in the final 2:40 of regulation time, during which the Cardinal erased an 11-point Tennessee lead. Whiting capped her performance with a jumper from the foul circle with :10 left in OT to win the game. It was sweet revenge for Stanford, which lost three times to the Lady Vols last season, including a defeat in the semifinals of the Final Four. "I kept thinking about those three losses last year," Whiting said after the game, "and all I could think was that I wanted to kick some butt."

For a while it looked as if Stanford's players, after a draining week of finals, wouldn't have the energy to kick anything. Whiting, a premed major, took exams in physics, chemistry and psychology. VanDerveer knew her players needed an emotional charge, so before the game she showed them a video of the positive moments in last year's losses to the Vols.

"We didn't think it would last very long," said sophomore guard Christy Hedgepeth, who had 21 points and seven rebounds for Stanford, "but we saw that we did do some good things in those games. That really got us pumped up."

And whose idea was it to show the tape?

"For a change," said VanDerveer, "my own."

The Jayhawks Walk

Kansas is off to a typically fast start with its usual group of low-profile players. The seventh-ranked Jayhawks, 5-0 at week's end, haven't exactly played a killer schedule, but their 104-75 pasting of DePaul last Saturday was worth noting. They displayed the kind of defense that helped get them to the national championship game last season, forcing the Blue Demons to commit 18 first-half turnovers and miss 14 of their first 15 shots.