Late-season turnaround pushed Stanford women to NCAA berth

STANFORD - Tara VanDerveer admittedly had her doubts that this season would end with an NCAA tournament berth for Stanford, and that's a strange thing to hear from the Hall of Fame coach leading a storied program that regularly plays deep into March.

She even mentioned it to star senior Brittany McPhee.

There were reasons. In late December, the Cardinal fell out of the AP Top-25 poll after a 17-year run in the rankings dating to the 2001 season and 312 consecutive ranked weeks. McPhee had missed nine games with a foot injury.

As VanDerveer's teams tend to do, the Cardinal rallied back in the season's second half. And No. 4 seed Stanford (22-10) is now hosting a first-round matchup in the Lexington Region Saturday against familiar foe Gonzaga (27-5).

Some tweaks had to be made to the schedule last minute after some matchups fell through in the summer, meaning Baylor was added.

“We played arguably the toughest schedule that Stanford has ever played,” VanDerveer said.

In Saturday's first game, fifth-seeded Missouri (24-7) will face No. 12-seed Florida Gulf Coast (30-4), which is riding a 10-game winning streak having won 20 of its last 21.

Stanford hasn't played since a 20-point defeat to Oregon in the Pac-12 tournament final on March 4. More motivation for the Cardinal is the fact Gonzaga won the last meeting, visiting The Farm on Nov. 18, 2016 - the Zags' lone victory over eight games in the series.

This is the 31st consecutive NCAA appearance for the Cardinal, who have a 30-4 NCAA record on their home court.

“They're a different team and we're a different team. We know that we have to play well and I think that they probably know the same thing,” VanDerveer said. “In some ways, having lost to Gonzaga, there are some situations where I think some teams, they look at the seed and they just assume the seed is going to take care of the game and it's not.”

All of the teams here but Missouri took part in the Play4Kay Showcase at Las Vegas in November.

Florida Gulf Coast is plenty familiar with Stanford, too: VanDerveer earned her 900th career victory when the Cardinal beat the Eagles 83-59 in a Thanksgiving tournament at Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, in 2013.

VanDerveer showed FGCU coach Karl Smesko around the arena Friday.

“We played them when she won her 900th game and she was very gracious,” he said. “Obviously she's a coaching legend.”