Stanford/Rutgers Photo Gallery

SportsPage Magazine's photo gallery of the Stanford/Rutgers game

The Cardinal aren't going to be pushed around

Freshman Kayla Pedersen had 16 points and 15 boards to lift Stanford.

Controversial finish? Sure. But don't let Candice Wiggins' winning free throws with a tenth of a second left in Stanford's 60-58 win over No. 3 Rutgers overshadow the real story line: The Cardinal aren't going to be pushed around this season.

Graham Hays (ESPN) writes about the New Season, New Side of Stanford.

Here is Scott Bland's (The Stanford Daily) Game Report and an Opinion Piece, which concludes, "Whether for right or wrong reasons, Rutgers women’s basketball is all over the news, and people know that it is a good program. Stanford just beat the Scarlet Knights on national television. People are going to be paying attention to the Cardinal after this."
Here are the AP game recap, photo gallery and the box score from Stanford Athletics.

News from the New Haven Register

Jayne scoring two of her twenty points

Cardinal Clobber Yale

As Chris Gobrecht watched Candice Wiggins, Jayne Appel, Kayla Pedersen and the rest of the Stanford women's basketball team score pretty much at will on Friday afternoon, the Yale coach probably thought some introductions were needed.

No, not with the stars of the seventh-ranked Cardinal, but with the members of her own team, who, at times, bore little resemblance to the squad she was expecting to see in Yale's season opener.

Gobrecht began her third season at the helm of the Yale program by watching her nervous group of Bulldogs fall 100-44 at the John J. Lee Amphitheater.

Full story
Here are the AP game recap, photo gallery and the box score from Stanford Athletics.

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Competition still fueling Gobrecht and VanDerveer

They are less cantankerous now, a concession to age and perspective. But other than the circumstances that brought these two wild and crazy coaches together again at the Lee Amphitheater at Payne Whitney Gym Friday, not much else has changed about Stanford's Tara VanDerveer and Yale's Chris Gobrecht.

Full story

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UConn Series With Cardinal in Works

When the Stanford and Connecticut women's basketball teams play in the Paradise Jam in the U.S. Virgin Islands on Nov. 22, it will be the first regular-season meeting between the two elite programs in a decade.

The wait for the next meeting will come a lot sooner.

After her team defeated Yale 100-44 on Friday, Stanford coach Tara VanderVeer said that a home-and-away series with UConn is in the works.

"We're working on it," VanderVeer said. "Connecticut has a great program, and we'd love to get a yearly game, as we have been doing with Tennessee. We have to hold up our end of the bargain and do the things to make it a rivalry. With Connecticut, we haven't played them a lot, but our games have been very competitive.

"We are working on dates. We'd love to play them."

The teams played four times in a 46-month span from 1993-97. VanderVeer said the two sides are close to finalizing the deal for the series, which would start either in the 2008-09 or the 2009-10 seasons.

Candice takes aim at her final title shot

Graham Hays (ESPN) writes:

The first three seasons of Candice Wiggins' Stanford career ensured she'll leave The Farm as the greatest player in the program's illustrious history. Her final season will determine whether she leaves Palo Alto as the greatest Stanford player never to win a national championship.

Thanks in large part to an infusion of young talent headlined by sophomore post Jayne Appel, the Cardinal appear to have more than an outside shot of ensuring that doesn't happen.

…

And even if Appel, the program's next great star, and the rest of the team's young players can't fully realize the magnitude of the task ahead of them, they have a very tangible image of what they're working for right in front of them.

"I think she worked extremely hard all three years," said Appel, a Bay Area native who followed Wiggins and the Cardinal long before signing on herself. "Being a part of the team and seeing it even more has helped me want to get it for her that much more. So it will definitely be a fight this year to get it for her."

Read the rest of the article and learn Tara's 11th commandment for Jayne.

Watch the Yale and Rutgers games

Don't you hate it when the season starts with two tough away games, and you can't be there yelling, "GO-O-O-O-O STANFORD!!!"

One exhibition game and they're gone! But you can see both games.

The Yale game on Friday at 1:00 PT will be video-streamed on the Yale All-Access (CSTV) channel. And archived -- so if you're busy working, you can watch it in the evening. This is how to see the game:

1. Access the Yale Bulldog website
2. Click the Yale All-Access icon at the top of the righthand sidebar
3. Click the image
4. Click Women's Basketball
5. Sign in, or register if you haven't already done so (it's free)
6. Click Watch the Yale/Stanford game
7. Expand the screen (icon at right of play bar), which gives you a somewhat better view

This works on a PC with IE 6.0 or higher and on a Mac with Safari 2. It doesn't work on either with Firefox, nor with Safari 3 (which comes with the Leopard operating system on a Mac).

Here is Yale's 2007-08 Season Preview and GoStanford's preview of the game.

The Rutgers game on Sunday will be on ESPN at 5:00 PT. (Both the channel and time were changed a couple of weeks ago.)

Here is a story about Rutgers' expectations for 2007-08.

Solid Gold at the point

Michelle Smith (San Francisco Chronicle) reports that Ros returns leaner, stronger and a more confident player after absorbing the lessons that come from spending a season on the bench.

Ros said, " I feel like mentally, I'm so much stronger. I spent the whole year developing, watching people who were doing well, watching people who weren't doing well, and learning and comparing to what I would have done in that situation."

Tara said, "Who's this new girl? She's grown up a lot. She watched for a year and it hit her, I think.

Here is the whole story and Michelle's preview of Cal and of the Bay Area WCC teams: Santa Clara, USF and St.Mary's.

Make room for Cal

Laurence Miedema (The Mercury News) reports that the most heralded recruiting class in Cal history is determined to help the Bears give Stanford a run for its money on the Bay Area women's basketball scene.

Here are some quotes from his story:

• Tara:" It creates a buzz about women's basketball in the Bay Area. There is plenty of room for great teams and great players out here. It's a good rivalry and a healthy rivalry. There's nothing that says that we both couldn't go to the Elite Eight or the Final Four."
  
  
• Joanna Boyle: "I try not to compare us, because the schools and the teams are so different. But (Stanford Coach Tara VanDerveer) has set a really high bar. I just felt that in time we could be one of the elite teams in the country, and I want to also do it on a consistent basis."
  
  

• Candice:" I didn't like people thinking we were the only good team in the Pac-10. Cal's success is good for everybody."
  
  

• Alexis Gray-Lawson: "This is the reason we (Alexis and Devanei Hampton and Ashley Walker) decided to come here. We wanted to make a name for ourselves."

Here is the whole story,
the Stanford women's basketball preview,
the Cal women's basketball preview,
the Santa Clara women's basketball preview and
the San Jose State women's basketball preview,

Stanford rolls to 95-44 win over Chico State

Michelle Smith (SF Chronicle) reports that Stanford newcomers shone in the exhibition game against Chico State. And so they did -- Kayla had 17 points and 10 rebounds; Jeanette had 16 points and 8 rebounds.

But Jillian led the effort with 18 points, 11 rebounds and 5 assists!
Morgan had 6 blocks -- 3 of them in one possession!

Jeanette's injury came late in the fourth quarter. She sat out the rest of the game with an ice bag on her thigh, and walked around with no apparent discomfort after the game. It's reported to have been a charley horse.

Here is GoStanford's report of the game and the box score.

Candice geared up for strong final season

AP sports writer Jane McCauley writes about Candice's final season, her role as a leader for the Cardinal, and her hopes for the future. Here's the article.

An interview with Jillian & Michelle

The Bootleg columnist Sue Bair interviewed Jillian and Michelle, who are expected to be major Cardinal contributors this season.

Michelle worked with a trainer all summer to improve her conditioning and strength -- the coaches are calling her the "most improved" of the returning players in terms of conditioning. With a year of experience behind her, she expects to contribute much more this season.

Jillian worked on her perimeter shooting this summer, taking Tara's advice that this is the key to elevating her game. With four seniors having graduated, she expects to be more of a leader this season.

They both had a lot more to say. Here is the complete interview.