Stanford's NCAA run ends with loss to Tennessee in title game

4/9/2008 4:45 AM

By JANIE McCAULEY
AP Sports Writer

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -Tara VanDerveer consoled a sobbing Candice Wiggins on the podium in one of their final public moments together as part of Stanford.

Wiggins hardly had her best performance in her final collegiate game, yet the only thing either wanted to do after the Cardinal lost the NCAA championship was celebrate a special year for a program that had waited a decade to do this.

``It hasn't sunk in,'' VanDerveer said. ``She's a wonderful human being. I loved coaching her. I wish we could send her out as national champion, but we did the second best thing we could.''

Wiggins and her teammates never found a rhythm against Tennessee's swarming defense in a sloppy 64-48 loss to the Lady Vols on Tuesday night.

Wiggins finished with 14 points on 6-for-16 shooting, four rebounds and four steals, one night before she will be a high selection in the WNBA draft. Stanford couldn't make it two wins this season over gutsy Tennessee after an overtime victory back home at Maples Pavilion in December.

``We were more composed with the pressure,'' Wiggins said of the first matchup. ``We didn't allow it to get to us. Today, for whatever reason, there were a lot of turnovers, turnovers that would never happen - missed passes, miscues. The whole course of the year, no team's really pressed us or pressured us.

``That was their game plan to really be tight and aggressive on us. When we haven't seen it in I don't know how many games, you're not used to it. The pace of the game was different. We weren't able to establish a rhythm.''

Stanford (35-4), a No. 2 seed, had its nation's-best winning streak snapped at 23 games. VanDerveer went to her bench with 1:13 remaining and Wiggins exited for the last time. After the final buzzer, Wiggins embraced the lone other Stanford senior, Cissy Pierce.

The emotion of it all will likely hit VanDerveer on Wednesday. She has been in denial about Wiggins' departure for months, repeatedly saying she won't let the All-American guard graduate and say goodbye.

All Wiggins wanted was to leave everything she had on the court in her last game, so she could at least walk away proud of her performance and be proud of her teammates. Despite a double-digit deficit late in the game, the Cardinal kept coming.

Yet each time Stanford pulled within striking distance, the Cardinal hurt themselves with a costly turnover or they couldn't get a key defensive stop.

Tennessee came at Stanford from every spot on the floor, pressuring the ball and making it hard to get the ball inbounds or past midcourt. That led to an uncharacteristic 25 turnovers.

Stanford already had 11 turnovers with 6:33 to play in the first half. The Cardinal committed 11 in their semifinal victory over Connecticut and averaged 13.1 for the season.

``We did not see pressure all year, and we knew it was coming in the tournament,'' guard Rosalyn Gold-Onwude said. ``It's funny it did not come until the championship game. Maybe if we had handled it better early on, they would have taken their press off, but we didn't and it set the tone for the game. We knew the pressure was coming and hadn't seen it, so it wasn't a surprise.''

Wiggins had four first-half turnovers and six in all. After she airballed a 3 at the 13:34 mark of the first half, she took an imaginary shot and held her follow-through, trying to find her form.

Her journey with this program began in the fall of 2004, when she committed to improving her late father's legacy through her own success. Her dad, former major league baseball player Alan Wiggins, died of complications from AIDS at age 32, about a month before she turned 4.

She showed up for a practice early on as a freshman wearing a T-shirt reading: ``No doubt about it. My health. My sport. My victory. I compete clean.''

But, really, it started well before that. Wiggins loved Stanford growing up in San Diego and dreamed of playing for VanDerveer.

The runner-up finish will still be celebrated by this bunch. Back in October, VanDerveer talked about this journey and taking the little steps to make it happen.

The Cardinal hadn't been to a Final Four since 1997 or a championship game since Stanford won it all in '92.

More than an hour before tipoff, Wiggins sat on the bench with her teammates around her as they joked and smiled and chatted - staying loose the way they prefer to do and enjoying each other's company for as long as possible.

They hardly noticed when Tennessee star Candace Parker walked onto the court to loud cheers and clicking cameras from every section of the arena, continuing their conversation while taking turns talking.

``I don't think it has set in yet,'' Wiggins said, crying. ``I told the guys in the locker room I couldn't be any prouder of them. I wouldn't want to be on any other team in the country. It happens that we ended our season with a loss, and that hurts.''