WOMEN’S BASKETBALL : USC Has Tough Test Against Stanford Tonight

Cheryl Miller will have a better idea after tonight whether her USC women’s basketball team will win the Pacific 10 championship the easy way, the hard way or maybe not at all.

The sixth-ranked Trojans have a two-game conference lead, but must play Stanford at Maples Pavilion, where USC hasn’t won since 1988. Moreover, Stanford has won 101 of its last 104 home games.

The Trojans (12-1 in the Pac-10, 19-2 overall) and Stanford (9-3, 16-5) met four weeks ago in Los Angeles, where Stanford lost twice on the same weekend for the first time in six years. USC defeated the Cardinal, 81-73, and UCLA did likewise, 80-73.

UCLA (9-4, 14-8) faces California (2-10, 8-14) at Berkeley tonight, and travels to Stanford on Saturday night, when USC plays at Cal.

With only four games remaining after tonight--against Cal, UCLA, Oregon and Oregon State--USC could virtually wrap up the title tonight with a victory over a Stanford team that has rebounded significantly since its losses in L.A.

Coach Tara VanDerveer’s Cardinal started this season with lowered expectations, but at Stanford that can still mean a top-10 team. And it is ranked 11th this week.

Stanford has won two of the last four national championships and has been to three of the last four Final Fours. The women outdrew the men last season and have a chance to do it again. Stanford is expecting close to a 7,500 sellout tonight.

USC is hopeful, but Miller acknowledged the scope of the challenge. “It’ll be our biggest win yet, if we can get it,” she said.

“It would be huge. If we beat them up there, we’d leave them with a message if we have to play them again in the regionals. It’s tough to beat a good team three times, but we’ll die trying, if we have to.”

She was referring to the NCAA West Regionals at Stanford on March 24-26. As the host team, the Cardinal figures as a near-certain participant and USC as a likely, though not certain, entrant in the four-team tournament.

The winner will advance to the Women’s Final Four at Richmond, Va., April 2-3. Pairings for the 64-team tournament will be announced on March 13.

Miller’s challenge tonight appears troublesome on multiple fronts:

--Stanford has beaten USC in 11 of its last 13 meetings.

--Stanford has won five in a row since losing to USC by an average margin of 29 points. Most recently, Stanford handed Cal the worst defeat in its history, 111-64.

--Stanford has made 70 three-pointers in its last 10 games and is shooting 45% from three-point range.

Conceivably, both Miller and UCLA Coach Kathy Olivier could take their teams to the playoffs in their coaching debuts. UCLA has won four in a row since losing at USC, 85-70, on Feb. 4.

And just as 6-foot-5 senior Lisa Leslie has powered USC all season, 6-1 senior Natalie Williams has done the same for the Bruins. Probably the country’s most dominating rebounder, Williams broke the conference record with 25 rebounds against Arizona State on Sunday.

She ranks fifth nationally in rebounding with an average of 13.5 a game and sixth in scoring at 23.5 points.

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Stop here if you’ve heard this before, but USC will launch yet another feasibility study on building an on-campus basketball arena.

Lisa Leslie, for one, has heard this before.

“When USC recruited me, they said I’d be playing in an arena here by my sophomore year,” she said.

The USC men’s and women’s teams practice in an antiquated gym upstairs in the old USC physical education building, built in the 1920s, and where the baselines are dangerously close to the walls.

The men play in the Sports Arena, which can be a dangerous late-night walk for students. The women play in Lyon Center, a high school-size facility that was built primarily to serve student recreational needs. For intercollegiate athletics, it doesn’t work.

No concession sales are permitted, for one thing. For another, there have been repeated instances of student security personnel tossing reporters who were writing on deadline out of the building at “closing time.”

Athletic Director Mike Garrett will form a committee this spring to examine the cost and possible sites for a facility. One proposal to be discussed: Gutting the PE building, retaining the exterior and building a 7,500-seat arena inside.

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The Stanford women’s basketball program has become second to none in recent seasons, and the Cardinal’s recent signings indicate that VanDerveer could keep it going to the year 2000.

Of the six freshmen VanDerveer has recruited, two are considered possibly 1-2 in the country in talent. They are 6-2 Kristin Folkl of St. Louis, who can dunk with the tallest of them, and 6-7 Chandra Benton of Lake Oswego, Ore.

The others are 6-2 Olympia Scott of St. Bernard, called one of the best prospects in Southern California; 6-4 Heather Owen of Moscow, Ida.; 6-3 Naomi Mulitauaopele of Seattle, and 6-0 Regan Freuen of Spokane, Wash.

Folkl is a two-sport athlete, in basketball and volleyball.

“This is not only the best freshman group we’ve brought in, but the biggest,” VanDerveer said Wednesday.

Not that Stanford needed much help. Its two top players this season, 6-5 Anita Kaplan and 6-3 Rachel Hemmer, are juniors. There is only one senior on this team, and of the top nine players, four are freshmen.

Women’s Basketball Notes

Stanford’s women are averaging 4,447 fans a game, the men 4,747. But the women’s most attractive games are yet to come--USC tonight, UCLA on Saturday and Washington on March 12. . . . Stanford and Washington are 1-2 in Pac-10 women’s attendance, with the Huskies averaging 4,416 a game. Arizona is third with a 1,743 average.

Marianne Stanley, the former USC women’s basketball coach who sued last summer over a contract dispute with Athletic Director Mike Garrett, is a part-time women’s basketball marketing director for Stanford basketball. While she awaits a trial date on her case, she’s also looking for a coaching job, and Stanford Coach Tara VanDerveer has encouraged her to seek a men’s coaching job, as well as a women’s opening.

Here’s the Pac-10 ruling on the Feb. 3 Washington State-Arizona State game, which wasn’t played because the flu left only four healthy WSU players able to play: The game was ruled a forfeit, giving the Sun Devils (1-12) their only victory. Washington State is 2-11. . . . VanDerveer said Jody Runge of Oregon will get her vote for Pac-10 coach-of-the-year honors. In her first year, Runge’s team has clinched a winning season, after the Ducks finished 3-15 in the conference and 9-18 overall last season.

Comparing USC’s Lisa Leslie and UCLA’s Natalie Williams: Leslie is averaging 22.1 points and 12.3 rebounds a game, and has 52 assists, 64 blocks and 52 steals. Williams is averaging 23.5 points and 13.5 rebounds, and has 31 assists, 20 blocks and 71 steals. . . . Leslie and Trojan freshman Tina Thompson have 259 and 219 rebounds, respectively. No other USC player has more than 84. In the Pac-10, Leslie ranks behind only Williams, and Thompson is fourth, behind Cal’s Ingrid Dixson.

VanDerveer, on the aftermath of Stanford’s Jan. 30 loss at USC: “I told them the S on their jerseys stood for stupid . And I included the coaches in that, too. We weren’t playing or coaching well then. I’m much happier with how we’re playing now.” . . . Two Stanford players USC doesn’t want at the free-throw line tonight: Christy Hedgpeth, who has made 84.6%, and Kate Starbird, who has made 81.9%. They rank 1-2 in the Pac-10.