Complaints Are Plentiful About This Field Too

By EARL GUSTKEY

March 11, 1996 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Stanford, Louisiana Tech, Tennessee and defending champion Connecticut drew the No. 1 seeds Sunday in what will be the most-watched NCAA women’s basketball tournament ever.

And for West Coast women’s basketball, it may be the most complained-about NCAA tournament too.

Only six West Coast schools--even when you include Hawaii (23-5)--were tapped by selectors Sunday, prompting acting head Coach Amy Tucker at Stanford to wonder about an East Coast bias.

“When Judy Holland of UCLA chaired the selection committee, we had a voice,” said Tucker.

“Now we don’t, and it shows. The East Coast and Midwest media kind of dominate the coverage, including the AP women’s poll [which comes out of Des Moines], and I think it’s created a West Coast bias.”

Almost a quarter of the 64-team field is made up of Southeast Conference (seven) and Big Ten schools (six), leaving third-ranked Stanford (25-2) almost alone as the standard bearer for West Coast women’s college basketball.

The Atlantic Coast Conference, Conference USA, Big Eight and Southwest conferences also had more schools chosen than the Pacific 10.

Only Oregon (18-10) and Oregon State (19-8) joined Stanford from the Pac-10. The remaining West Coast selections were Portland (23-6) and San Francisco (22-7).

Stanford, which just completed an unbeaten Pac-10 season at 18-0, was seeded No. 1 in the West Regional and will play host to Grambling (21-6) on March 18.

The other No. 1 seeds and their Friday openers:

--Top-ranked Louisiana Tech (28-1) vs. Central Florida (15-13).

--Fourth-ranked Tennessee (26-4) vs. Radford (17-11).

--No. 2-ranked Connecticut (30-3) vs. Howard (20-9).

Stanford, in the same region as Big Ten power and No. 2-seed Penn State (25-6), hopes to advance to the West Regional final at Seattle March 23-25.

Louisiana Tech is aimed toward the Midwest Regional final at Nacogdoches, Texas, Tennessee at the East final at Charlottesville, Va., and Connecticut at the Mideast final at Chicago.

The Final Four is at the sold-out Charlotte Coliseum March 29-31.

Tucker, who with co-head Coach Marianne Stanley guided Stanford this year for Olympic team Coach Tara VanDerveer, questioned why the committee picked six Big Ten teams.

“I heard them say the Pac-10 is down. . . . Well, maybe it’s a case of a conference having a lot of parity just below our team. They took six Big Ten teams and a lot of people think the Big Ten is down too.”

Selection committee chair Linda Bruno on Sunday seemed to concur what many had felt all season, that Stanford had dominated a weaker Pac-10. Five Pac-10 teams made the tournament last year.

“We felt the Pac-10 was a little down,” Bruno said. “We didn’t feel going more than three deep was appropriate.”

She denied the committee sent Connecticut to the Mideast because only 5,500 tickets have been sold for the regional semifinals and final at Rosemont Horizon in Rosemont, Ill.

“That was not a factor, but we obviously know UConn will sell tickets wherever we send them,” she said. “They’ve had a great season and we didn’t feel it was fair to ask them to [maybe] play Virginia in Charlottesville.”

Whatever, the women’s game enters a new TV era with this tournament.

It’s the first post-season under ESPN’s $19 million, seven-year deal with women’s basketball. ESPN and ESPN2 will televise eight games from the round of 32, all eight regional semifinals, all four regional finals and all three Final Four games.

Naturally, Tucker hopes everyone will see Stanford sweep through this thing like her players went through the Pac-10 season--only the second unbeaten season in conference history.

“Obviously, we’re playing well . . . but you can never be satisfied,” she said.

“We’re a young team and sometimes we play like it. Our players play hard defense so I can’t complain about that. Our No. 1 priority now is to improve our rebounding, and secondly to take better care of the ball.”

Tucker said her team is healthy, with the exception of her leading rebounder, Vanessa Nygaard, slowed because of a foot stress fracture.

“She’ll still start, but she’s in pain and we’ve played her only 15 minutes a game the last three weeks,” Tucker said.

At Tennessee, Pat Summitt has a gimpy star too. New York City freshman Chamique Holdsclaw, arguably the country’s best freshman, is day-to-day because of a knee injury. Tennessee is a No. 1 seed for the ninth consecutive year, but lost earlier this season to Stanford by 18 points.

In addition to the top seeds, eight others received home court games in the first round: Virginia, Kansas, Vanderbilt, Duke, Clemson, Texas Tech, Colorado and Alabama.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Women’s Tournament Conference Breakdown

* SOUTHEASTERN (7)--Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, Vanderbilt

* BIG TEN (6)--Iowa, Michigan State, Ohio State, Purdue, Penn State, Wisconsin

* ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE (4)--Clemson, Duke, North Carolina State, Virginia

* BIG EIGHT (4)--Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma State

* CONFERENCE USA (4)--DePaul, Memphis, Southern Mississippi, Tulane

* SOUTHWEST (4)--Southern Methodist, Texas, Texas A&M;, Texas Tech

* ATLANTIC 10 (3)--George Washington, Massachusetts, Rhode Island

* PACIFIC 10 (3)--Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford

* BIG EAST (2)--Connecticut, Notre Dame

* COLONIAL (2)--James Madison, Old Dominion