Tennessee's Parker, Stanford's Wiggins ready for next chapter in WNBA

4/8/2008 4:27 PM

By JANIE McCAULEY
AP Sports Writer

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - Candace Parker and Candice Wiggins will quickly go from the thrill of playing for a national championship with their teammates to sitting alone at the WNBA draft, ready to begin the next chapter of their basketball careers.

It surely will be strange for both Ace & Ice come Wednesday as they wait to be selected after fabulous farewells with their college programs. These talented women with nearly identical first names - thus the nicknames ``Ace'' and ``Ice'' - will stay put in Florida while their teammates head home on charter flights and back to classes.

Parker and Wiggins won't be sitting around for long. Parker is the projected No. 1 pick by the Los Angeles Sparks and LSU's Sylvia Fowles likely will follow and go to Chicago. Wiggins could be selected third and be off to the Minnesota Lynx or perhaps get chosen fourth by Bill Laimbeer and the Detroit Shock.

Then, this August, they both probably will be headed to Beijing together with USA Basketball for the Olympics.

Parker was trying to make Tennessee the first repeat NCAA champion since Connecticut won three straight titles from 2002-04 and give the Lady Vols their eighth overall after an earlier loss to Stanford back in December at Maples Pavilion.

She will leave the Lady Vols with a year of eligibility remaining, but has refused to reflect much on her departure just yet.

``Obviously I've talked about living in the moment and just staying day to day,'' said Parker, playing with a sore non-shooting left shoulder that she twice dislocated last week vs. Texas A&M. ``That's what I'm trying to do now. I'm focusing on that. I haven't had time to really think about it.''

Wiggins will walk away from her spectacular career and senior season having taken the Cardinal further than they'd been since 1992 when the program won it all. Stanford hadn't reached the Final Four since 1997 or advanced to the championship game since the '92 team.

The Pac-10's career scoring leader has reminded herself all season of a quote she heard from assistant coach Kate Paye way back in the preseason last fall.

``Kate turned to me and said, 'If you want something you've never had before, you have to do things you've never done before,'' Wiggins recalled. ``Every single day, Kate did not let up on the guards.''

And Wiggins didn't let up ever. Heading into the title game, her team had won 23 straight games since a pair of losses to USC and UCLA in Los Angeles way back in early January.

Tennessee coach Pat Summitt has prepared herself for life without Parker - as difficult as that might be to do right now.

``Candace, I didn't know what she was going to do. There's always rumors flying all around until she said she was going to go through senior night, and she did ask me, 'Why haven't you asked me to stay?''' Summitt said. ``And I said, 'Well, Candace, I would love for you to stay, but it's strictly your decision.' She's a very bright student. If she stayed she'd be in grad school.

``But I think Candace has mapped out everything from wanting to win a national championship to then playing in the Olympics and the WNBA. She kind of mapped out her path or the path she wanted to take for the next couple of years at least.''

Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer has joked all season that she won't let Wiggins graduate. Wiggins will be a few credits short of her degree but plans to walk in commencement ceremonies this spring and return to Stanford and finish up as soon as she can.

Her teammates credit their All-American leader for pushing harder than anyone every day in practice, remaining humble and keeping this group together and free of drama.

Even at team dinners on campus back home in the Bay Area, this bunch would stay and talk hours after they were done eating - until someone brought up the fact they might need to get to their homework.

``She deserves everything she's getting this year,'' Stanford guard Rosalyn Gold-Onwude said of Wiggins. ``Winning a national championship would put amazing closure on her career.''