NCAA WOMEN’S BASKETBALL FINAL : NOTES : Stanford to Have All Starters Back

There is bad news and even worse news for future opponents of the Stanford women’s NCAA championship basketball team.

Only one member of the team that beat Western Kentucky, 78-62, at the Sports Arena on Sunday graduates. She is Ann Adkins, a reserve who played in the final 20 seconds of the game.

The even worse news is the team has five promising freshmen, the most noteworthy being 6-foot-3 Rachel Hemmer of Austin, Tex. She scored 18 points and had 15 rebounds during the title game.

There is, however, a sliver of hope for opposing coaches. Stanford has no scholarships to give and will not be in contention for this season’s crop of high school seniors.

Junior guard Molly Goodenbour of Stanford was voted the most valuable player in the Final Four, and teammates Val Whiting and Rachel Hemmer also made the squad. The other two members were Kim Pehlke of Western Kentucky and Dawn Staley of Virginia.

Goodenbour scored 12 points and had six assists Sunday, but her main contribution was handling Western Kentucky’s press with ease.

For Staley, who ended her career Saturday in a 66-65 loss to Stanford, it was a weekend of honors. Besides making the all-tournament team Sunday, she was also voted the Naismith Award as college basketball’s women’s player of the year for the second consecutive year. Last Friday, she was one of 10 players on the Kodak All-America squad.

Western Kentucky was 8-0 in Sunday afternoon games until Sunday. All eight of the victories came at their E.A. Diddle Arena, where Coach Paul Sanderford’s teams are 144-12.

The Omni in Atlanta will be the site of the women’s Final Four in 1993. Georgia Tech will be the host school. The 1994 tournament is set for the Richmond Coliseum in Richmond, Va. The Target Center in Minneapolis is the 1995 site.

Tennessee Coach Pat Summitt looked and felt out of place as a spectator at the women’s Final Four.

Usually, she is on the floor coaching. And very often, she and her Volunteers are winning the championship.

They have won three of the last six championships, the most recent coming last season.

Not only was Summitt not coaching, but no team from the Southeastern Conference made the Final Four. That is the first time that has happened since the NCAA began running the tournament in 1982.

“I don’t think that indicates that the SEC was weak this season,” Summitt said. “What it shows me is the growing strength of women’s basketball. There are so many good teams around that anyone can win on a given day.” The Vols were eliminated by Western Kentucky, 75-70, in the Mideast Regional semifinal.

Summitt said she enjoyed watching the practices and the games and meeting and chatting with old friends. But she made it clear that she considers this to be an exception to the rule.

“Not being involved in the Final Four just increases my motivation and I’m a pretty motivated person to begin with,” Summitt said. “It reminded me of how much it means to be part of the big dance.”

Summitt noted that when Tennessee won the NCAA title last season, four of the last five victories came against the teams in this year’s Final Four.

Wendell Yoshida, Peninsula High girls’ basketball coach, was very popular at Final Four events.

Everywhere he went, college coaches followed. They wanted to say hello, talk or simply pat him on the back.

The attention might be the result of Yoshida’s team going undefeated, winning the State championship and being selected as the nation’s top team by USA Today. Or it could be because Yoshida has been turning out top-flight Division I players at a pretty good clip for four years.

His current alumni list includes Heather and Heidi Burge of Virginia and Lisa Hunphreys of Loyola Marymount.

Four members of this year’s team have already accepted scholarships. Monique Morehouse and Kristen Mulligan are Auburn-bound. Jeffra Gausepohl will join the Burge twins at Virginia and Raquel Alotis will be at UC Santa Barbara.

But the best of all of Yoshida’s players might turn out to be sophomore Mimi McKinney, who was recently voted sophomore player of the year by Cal-Hi Sports News.

“The college coaches will love me at least until Mimi graduates,” Yoshida said jokingly. “Where were they all when I didn’t have good teams?”