Team From the West Is the Wildest One

The team bearing the banner of West Coast women’s basketball this weekend is an off-the-wall band of characters who call each other “Birdy,” “Wild Child,” “T-Rex,” and “Omi.”

Stanford (29-2), easily the loosest, goofiest bunch at the women’s Final Four, will play Georgia (27-4) in tonight’s second national semifinal game at the Charlotte Coliseum.

Defending champion Connecticut (34-3) will play Tennessee (30-4) in the early game.

Acting Stanford Coach Amy Tucker thought she had seen it all a few weeks ago when Vanessa “Wild Child” Nygaard went on and on at a news conference about how fur-bearing animals are known to chew off a leg when trapped in order to escape, and how she tries to apply that kind of intensity to her basketball game.

“When she said that, I thought: ‘Oh, great. . . . How’s that going to look in a headline?’ ” Tucker said.

Nygaard, a six-foot sophomore from Carlsbad, does everything for the Cardinal, from play a team-best defense to shoot three-pointers (40%) to lead the team in rebounds.

But it is her almost out-of-control enthusiasm for the game that has lately propelled this team, which hasn’t lost since December. She has been known to leap into the Stanford band at the final horn and play the drums to celebrate a victory.

When Stanford’s wide-open offense is crackling, the electrical charge is supplied by Nygaard. When she learned she had a stress fracture in her left foot earlier this year, she shrugged and said: “I don’t need a foot to win. I’ll figure something out.” No one asked if she’d consider chewing it off.

And when she fell to the floor and opened up an eight-stitch cut against Colorado State in the tournament, she was sewed up at halftime. Afterward, she shrugged that off too.

“What does your chin have to do with basketball?” she said.

All that was before the Samoan War Chant. When Stanford beat Alabama and Auburn at the West Regional in Seattle last week, Stanford players were impressed with a chant sent up by 22 members of Naomi “Omi” Mulitauaopele’s Seattle family.

So a special Samoan chant was produced for the Stanford team, one said also to be good for warding off sharks. The players not only learned the 15-second chant, they do it in three-part harmony.

“Birdy” is Kate Starbird. The 6-2 junior, a second team All-American, is the only Stanford player who has a green light all the time, Tucker said.

It is Georgia Coach Andy Landers’ task tonight to show his players how to stop Starbird from doing what she does best, running the opening court.

“Kate has freedom to do pretty much anything she wants in the open court,” Tucker said. “She’s very smart, creates things and has the three-point shot. If they put us in a half-court game, we’ll run her off screens and create that way.”

Reserve guard Tara Harrington is “T-Rex,” though no one seems sure how she got the nickname. It’s believed to have something to do with her summer activity of parachuting from airplanes to fight forest fires.

Stanford takes the Final Four’s longest win streak, 23, into tonight’s game against Georgia, the team picked by many to win it all.

The Bulldogs lost two of their last four games--to Vanderbilt and Louisiana State--before defeating four teams in the tournament.

Georgia, behind 5-7 Naismith Award winner Saudia Roundtree, overcame a nine-point halftime deficit to defeat the nation’s No. 1-ranked team, Louisiana Tech, 90-76, in the Midwest Regional final.

Landers said Thursday that his players must keep Stanford out of its racehorse offense.

“We don’t want them to run on us. . . . We must play tough transition defense,” he said.

Stanford wants to slow Roundtree, who scored 37 against Louisiana Tech. She’ll be guarded tonight by Stanford point guard Jamila Wideman.

“I’ve studied her on video, and she’s really tough, not only because she can get to the basket so fast but also because she’s got a great pull-up jumper,” she said.

UConn Coach Geno Auriemma spent Thursday lashing out at nearly everyone, from officials to All-American team selectors.

Of tournament officiating, Auriemma quipped: “It must be March, because Tennessee’s in the Final Four and UConn is in foul trouble.”

He was incensed his 6-7 junior center, Kara Wolters, wasn’t on the 10-player Kodak All-American team.

“You tell me how that’s possible,” he said. “We’re talking about the most dominant player in the country, maybe in the last 10 years. How is that possible?”

Tennessee Coach Pat Summitt said her team proved to itself it can achieve anything, after overcoming a 17-point deficit to beat Virginia last week.

“I can’t remember any team in my career that dug a hole that deep against a tough team and climbed out of it,” she said. “I told them at halftime, when they were down 13, that if they could win that game they could win the national championship.”

UConn beat Tennessee at Knoxville last Jan. 6, 59-53.