1. Stanford– The Cardinal will be young in the backcourt, dominant in the frontcourt and the biggest question will be how long does it take the freshmen to play at a Stanford-like level? Stanford might not get through the Pac-12 unbeaten this season.
   

   USC's Briana Gilbreath - USC athletics photo

2. USC – The Trojans have considerable experience and talent and right now they look like a team that belongs in the NCAA Tournament. But USC can’t afford bad late-season losses. And in the last few years, they haven’t been able to avoid them.
3. Cal. The Bears get a fresh start under head coach Lindsay Gottlieb and have experience all over the court, and some great young talent coming in. If this team underachieved last season – and they did – they are setting themselves up to be a potential spoiler in the Pac-12 race.
4. Gonzaga. Time to move on without Courtney Vandersloot. The Zags still look like the class of the WCC. The Nov. 13 game at Stanford will be telling for Kelly Graves’ team.
5. Arizona State. The Sun Devils, playing this season under Joseph Anders, needs offense to keep up with the best teams in the Pac-12. You probably can’t stop Stanford or USC from scoring, so you better keep up.
6. UCLA. Jasmine Dixon’s injury, paired with a head coaching change (from Nikki Caldwell to Cory Close) threatens to break the momentum that’s been gained in the past few seasons.
7. Arizona. How to replace the post presence of Ify Ibekwe? Niya Butts’ team has the backcourt covered with Davellyn Whyte and Shanita Arnold, but questions inside.
8. Utah. The Utes return four starters from a team that went to the NCAA Tournament last season and they are young with only one senior. They will be in the mix in the top half of the conference standings.
9. San Diego State. The Aztecs are back to playing “95 feet” of basketball says coach Beth Burns. Not a lot of size, but a lot of quickness and athleticism in the backcourt.
10.  Cal Poly. Kristina Santiago, out last season with an ACL injury, is back.

Close to the 10…

UC Santa Barbara

St. Mary’s

Picked to win by the coaches

The Pac-12 –Stanford

The WCC – Not released yet

The MWC – TCU

The Big West – Cal Poly

The WAC – Louisiana Tech

Go to www.pac-10.org and find the blog.
We can chat while you watch TV.

After spending the past two days at the Staples Center with the Pac-10 men, the women are coming to me!

I will be live blogging today’s semifinal games. If you’re at work, not near a TV and not in the arena, join me will ya!

LOS ANGELES – Oregon State’s long, win-starved season is over.

ASU's Dymond Simon - ASU Athletics

But the Beavers sat in the media interview room at the Galen Center on Wednesday afternoon and smiled and laughed a little and talked with fondness about what they had experienced.

“I am kind of sad it’s over,” said senior forward El Sara Greer. “I wish I could say another season.”

This from a player who saw so much in the last year. Players leave. A coach get fired. Another one get hired. The near-complete rebuilding of a roster and a program. Open-tryouts. Breaking in athletes from other sports to fill spots. Greer experienced it all. She will forever be known in this program as “the one who stayed.”

“I am indebted to her,” said OSU coach Scott Rueck. “I love her. I didn’t know her at all when I got her, but I loved the way she played. She helped us get a work-ethic established. She led by example from day one…She was a dream to coach. I’m said it’s over for her too.”

Oregon State finished the season 9-21. The Beavers won just two conference games and fell in the first round of the Pac-10 Tournament, 50-44 to Arizona State. OSU was down 15 points at one point during the game and cut that lead to five.

Like they had all season, throughout nearly every Pac-10 game, they gave the opponent a game.

“Today epitomized our season in many ways,” said Rueck. “We were underdogs, just like we’ve been all year and we fought to the end.”

Arizona State (20-9) solidified its NCAA standing with the win. The Sun Devils forced 20 turnovers and pulled down 16 offensive rebounds to outscore OSU 11-0 on second-chance baskets.

Senior point guard Dymond Simon led the Sun Devils with 13 points.

“I think I speak for the whole Pac-10 when I say Oregon State is a tough team,” said ASU coach Charli Turner Thorne. “They just do not go away.”

Arizona State moves on to take on the winner of the Arizona-Oregon game.

Turner Thorne will probably want to see more offense out of her team, which put up just 50 points. She probably wouldn’t mind a little more of a cushion, either.

“We are not really comfortable putting teams away,” Turner Thorne said. “We make it interesting.”

Oregon State moves on to what is surely a more stable future. Unlike the scramble that ensued after he was hired, Rueck will have time to rercruit and fill out his staff and his roster.

He will have time to convince the people in Corvallis that merely being competitive isn’t good enough – though it was understanable why some would feel that way.

“At the beginning of the year, teams thought it would be easy to win against us,” said freshman guard Alyssa Martin. “But we’ve been in every game. We got better and better every game and that will carry over to next year and that’s great.”

Live-blogging again today! No. 2 Stanford vs. Oregon at 2 p.m.

LOS ANGELES – Defining games.

There are a few of them every season for every team, games in which you find out where you are as a team, how far you’ve come, how much farther there is to go.

Sunday at Pauley Pavilion, No. 3 Stanford taking on No. 9 UCLA.The Bruins were looking to grab a share of the lead in the Pac-10 standings, looking to grab of share of Stanford’s top 5 national stature and prove that they indeed belong among the “elite”.

But in a 67-53 loss, in which the Cardinal dominated the second half after the two teams played to a 28-28 tie at the half, UCLA fell short of all of the above.
Playing in front of the biggest crowd to watch a women’s game at Pauley in 13 years, UCLA missed a big opportunity.
Stanford (24-2, 15-0) played for the first time this season without junior forward Nneka Ogwumike – the reigning Pac-10 Player of the Year. Nneka Ogwumike sprained her ankle Friday night at USC and Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer made a game-day decision to sit her leading scorer.
But the Cardinal picked up the slack, and that further defined the Cardinal in the mind of VanDerveer.
“Nneka’s dad has a saying ‘Every disappointment is a blessing’,” VanDerveer said. “We were disappointed Nneka couldn’t play. We want her to play and to be healthy. But as soon as it was clear that she wasn’t going to play, I was excited to see what different people would do. I told our team that before the game. I said ‘I’m going to learn a lot about our competitiveness, about how who really wants to be out there.’ This is a tough game to fill in for. There are a lot of other games that would be easier.”
Nneka’s younger sister Chiney continues to impress, finishing with 18 points and 15 rebounds in 37 minutes on the floor. She was 10 of 12 from the free-throw line.
Senior Kayla Pedersen didn’t have her best offensive day (4 of 12 from the floor), but ended up with 13 points and 11 rebounds and some huge plays down the stretch.
And freshman reserve guard Toni Kokenis capped the best weekend of her college career with 13 points of 5 of 8 shooting to go with three steals.
“We affectionately call our freshmen babies and our babies grew up today,” VanDerveer said. “Toni and Chiney had fabulous games.”
UCLA (22-3, 12-2) could well get another shot at Stanford in the Pac-10 Tournament finals, but if the Bruins hope to win, they will have to solve their biggest problem against Stanford in two games – the inability to knock down shots. In the first game between the two teams, a 64-38 Stanford win, UCLA shot 29.4 percent.
This time, the Bruins shot 31.1 percent. They were 19 of 61 from the field, attempting 11 more field-goals than the Cardinal. UCLA had two scorers in double figures – senior guard Darxia Morris who finished with 14 points, but only three in the second half, and junior forward Jasmine Dixon. Dixon, doubled the entire game, ended up with 10 points and 12 rebounds, but was just 3 of 13 from the floor.
UCLA wanted to disrupt Stanford, but Stanford’s size makes that tough. Stanford turned the ball over 13 times. But the Cardinal were able to hit enough outside shots and get the ball inside to take advantage of their superior size.
“Basically, you’ve got to make shots,” said UCLA coach Nikki Caldwell. “Jasmine struggled offensively, but we had some look from our guards and you’ve got to knock those down. And you’ve got to knock those down, and you’ve got to make lay-ups. We blew probably 20 lay-ups as well.”
Caldwell was asked what still separates Stanford from her team.
“Teaching our kids how to compete for 40 and not just be complacent to be in a game,” Caldwell said. “It’s a different mentality to convey here, one that they are grasping slowly, but one that every game we are trying to implement. Coming from a program like Tennessee, you play every day for a championship. You don’t do anything but practice every day and play for a championship. When you want to play with the big dogs, your big dogs have got to show up.”
The Cardinal are No. 3 for now.
Baylor’s loss to Texas Tech on Saturday opens the door for the Cardinal to move up into the top two in the national rankings. Tomorrow’s AP ranking will probably look like this: 1. Connecticut (with one loss) and 2. Stanford (the Cardinal with two losses despite the head-to-head matchup).
Stanford’s conference win streak moves to 53.
And VanDerveer may have more opportunity to rest Ogwumike for the stretch. Next week’s home set includes Oregon State and Oregon and neither team seems worthy of the risk if Ogwumike’s right ankle isn’t quite ready to go.
In the meantime, the Cardinal can rest in the comfort that they continue to define themselves as national title contenders.
“Honestly, I had a lot of confidence today going into the game, no matter who was going to start,” Pedersen said. “I think we were ready. Every single person out there was ready to battle and do what they needed to do.”

Back by popular demand. Noon. Join me, will you?

Tara VanDerveer was asked after her team’s win over USC on Friday night about her selection as one of 12 finalists for the Naismith Hall of Fame.

“I guess means you’ve been at it a long time, you know what I mean. My grandparents are from Springfield, Massachusetts, so as a young girl, I’ve been there. I’m very familiar with it. That’s where my mother’s family is from. So, it’s a tremendous honor. It’s a little surreal, honestly.

“But it’s a reflection of the fact that I’ve coached great student-athletes and Olympians and I’ve worked in great places…and had a lot of support. Honestly, I was totally thinking about this game, thinking about doing really well tonight for our team. I’m kind of an in-the-moment person.”

Senior guard Jeanette Pohlen on her coach’s nomination:

“I think it’s long overdue and well-deserved. She is just a smart person when it comes to a game and what needs to be done. It was just a matter of time, I think.”

Kayla Pedersen:

“That’s pretty big time. I didn’t know about it, so congrats coach. That’s awesome, definitely well-deserved…

Tara: “It’s just a nomination, Kayla…”

Kayla: “It’ll happen coach.”

Stanford senior guard Jeanette Pohlen, who was named Friday as one of 11 finalists for the Nancy Lieberman Award as the nation’s top point guard, had family waiting at the Galen Center. But she took a couple of minutes to chat with me postgame after the Cardinal’s win over USC. Pohlen led Stanford in scoring with 19 points, including 5 3-pointers.

It’s been too easy for too long for Stanford.

Blowout win after blowout win. Absolute, utter domination on the home floor. Pac-10 teams barely putting up a fight.

But on Saturday at Maples Pavilion, Washington did that. They did more. They pushed Stanford, made the Cardinal sweat, made the starters play the whole game, made them wonder a little whether they might come out with another win.

And that, said coach Tara VanDerveer, is both a valuable and beneficial experience for her team.

“Sometimes you need a little bit of a wakeup call,” VanDerveer said Saturday following Stanford’s 62-52 win over the Huskies at Maples Pavilion.

It was the narrowest margin Stanford has experienced in Pac-10 play this season, the narrowest margin at Maples Pavilion since a 70-67 win over Arizona in March of 2009.

Let’s run through the streaks.

16 straight wins

50 straight wins over Pac-10 opponents

58 straight home wins

But third-ranked Stanford (22-2, 13-0) was far from at its best this day. Perimeter offense was practically non-existent (1-for-21 from beyond the 3-point arc).

Two of the team’s “big three” struggled. Jeanette Pohlen and Kayla Pedersen were 0-for-14 from beyond the arc. The Cardinal shot 24 percent in the first half, finished with six field goals. Stanford finished shooting 36.5 percent for the game.

Washington (10-12, 5-8) was in the game until the final minutes, within two points with less than seven minutes to go. Kristi Kingma scored 18 of her 22 points in the second half, hitting 5 3-pointers that kept Washington in the game.

The Cardinal won because they dominated the offensive boards, because the Ogwumike sisters are glass cleaners, because while the Cardinal were far from perfect from the free-throw line (23 of 33), they were good enough given ample opportunity.

Nneka and Chiney Ogwumike combined for 43 points and 19 rebounds. Chiney’s 21 points was a career-best. The sisters were responsible for 14 of Stanford’s 19 field-goals, 15 of Stanford’s 23 free throws.

The Cardinal head to Los Angeles in a few days for what looks to be the toughest weekend of the conference season, a Friday game against USC and Sunday’s showdown with second place UCLA.

Perfect timing, says VanDerveer.

“This helps us a lot more,” VanDerveer said. “This will get people’s attention…I couldn’t ask for a better situation for us to go to Los Angeles.”