WOMEN’S FINAL FOUR : Stanford’s Azzi Will Try for Happy Ending : Women’s basketball: She will lead 31-1 Cardinal against 28-6 Auburn in today’s title game, the last game of her college career.

The book on Jennifer Azzi’s college career will close today.

It begins with a girl growing up in east Tennessee and becoming a basketball star. But she forgoes playing for southern college powers and decides to leave home for the first time.

She goes to Stanford and its bumbling basketball program, spends four years there and returns a senior on this upstart team representing the West for the national championship.

The Cardinal, which was 5-23 when Azzi arrived, is 31-1 and is considered the favorite today against a 28-6 Auburn team that will be making its third consecutive bid for the title, having lost the previous two.

“Going there and being able to be a part of something like this, and then coming back and seeing my family and friends . . . it’s been a great experience,” said Azzi, from nearby Oak Ridge.

“I had a feeling that the team would eventually be good. There was never a question of losing in my mind.”

As if there were ever reason for her to believe otherwise.

Azzi led her high school team to the state tournament final as a senior. Her junior high teams went 50-0, of which she remains particularly proud.

“When recruiting her, I brought up her junior high school team being 50-1,” Stanford Coach Tara VanDerveer said. “She told me it was 50-0 and not to make that mistake again.”

Asked why she chose a poor team on the West Coast instead of a powerhouse in the South, Azzi said she was ready for a challenge, both academically and athletically.

Such was available at Stanford.

“A lot of people grow up in Tennessee and have Tennessee on the brain,” VanDerveer says. “Academics were important, and she wanted the challenge of putting a place on the map.”

More than 1,600 points later, Azzi returns, having conquered that challenge.

The 5-foot-9 All-American guard will conclude her college career having won women’s basketball’s highest honors in the 1990 Naismith and Wade awards.

Today before about 20,000 in the Thompson-Boling Arena, Azzi will dribble downcourt at a full sprint and split the passing lanes to the inside. If there are none, she will pull up for a three-point shot, as she has done successfully 64 times this season, three against Virginia in Friday’s semifinal victory.

She will set picks and keep her opposing guard off balance, as she did to Virginia’s Tammi Reiss, holding the sophomore to two field goals in 13 tries.

Auburn, however, will have different plans in store for Azzi and the Cardinal in today’s game, at 10:30 a.m. PDT.

Utilizing what people are calling a “Velcro-defense,” the Tigers pressed No. 1-ranked Louisiana Tech into submission in Friday’s semifinal, and Coach Joe Ciampi said he will stick to that game plan against Stanford.

And guards Carolyn Jones, one of the best, and Evelyn Jones will probably get their share of points, as no one has been able to stop them down the stretch.

But Auburn has become a defense-oriented team, and Stanford, with Azzi and point guard Sonja Henning running the show, might be too well-equipped to be effectively contained.

Others have tried and all but No. 3 Washington--which won at Washington by three points in one of two games during the regular season--have failed.

“You can hardly find Azzi, let alone keep up,” Mississippi Coach Van Chancellor told the Knoxville News-Sentinel after his team lost by 13 points to Stanford in the West Regional semifinal.

Arkansas lost to Stanford by 27 in the final. Of Azzi, Coach John Sutherland said, “As soon as you prepare to shut her down, Stanford’s inside players shoot 79% and two of your players have fouled out.”

Ciampi even said he is “going to need six or seven people just to contain Stanford’s offensive achievers.”

And Azzi insists that each of her teammates is as deserving of credit as she, despite camera crews and reporters following her around.

“I’ve said all along that it’s definitely the team, and that’s always number one with me,” she says. “I think people are just looking at me because I’m from east Tennessee.”

Statistics reinforce the Cardinal’s unselfishness.

“Jenny is the most unselfish player there’s ever been,” forward Julie Zeilstra said. “I think it’s great that she’s getting all the attention. If we get some, fine, but if she gets it, great.”

Henning, one of the country’s most underrated ball-handlers, said: “The biggest asset to our team is that we are a team. Jennifer, Katy (Steding) and I and Trisha (Stevens) have been playing together three years, so we know each other well . . . our best is playing as a team.”

Five Stanford players averaged in double figures during the season and four scored 10 or more Friday against Virginia.

Stanford will look to run against the pressing Tigers, but if it is unable to there remains the strong inside play of Stevens, Steding, Zeilstra and, off the bench, 6-3 freshman Val Whiting.

And the outside threat posed by Azzi and Henning. “What concerns us is who do you try to disrupt, and who do you let take over the game?” Ciampi said. “But we’re excited to have come to the top of the mountain, and we still have 40 minutes of basketball to play.”