San Francisco Cannot Expect Leniency From This Judge

Here’s this week’s theme for the University of San Francisco women’s basketball team, which plays USC today in the first round of the NCAA tournament:

Here comes the Judge.

They get the Judge, also known as Tina Thompson, and four teammates perched on her broad shoulders.

USC, third-place finisher in the Pacific 10 Conference, takes on the West Coast Conference champion in a Mideast Regional game, the winner moving on to play the Florida-Florida International winner Monday.

Thompson, a 6-foot-3 senior who has 58 double-doubles, will have many options after her USC career ends this month.

First, there’s the matter of women’s professional basketball. There’s the Women’s NBA, which has a team in Los Angeles, the Sparks. And there’s the American Basketball League, which might have a team in Long Beach or Anaheim next season.

Then there’s law school (her goal: to be a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge), preferably near wherever she lands in pro ball.

Then there are the 2000 Olympics.

“The Olympics are huge to me,” she said this week after her team’s final pretournament practice at USC.

That’s probably not good news to the WNBA, which will play summer seasons, beginning in June, but good news for the ABL, which plays during the conventional basketball season.

On anyone’s short list, Thompson--along with Stanford’s Kate Starbird and Connecticut’s Kara Wolters--is a franchise player in the upcoming WNBA and ABL drafts.

Then again, the WNBA could simply sign her and assign her to the Sparks, just as the ABL will tell Starbird she can play anywhere she wants in their league--in San Jose or in Seattle, near her home town of Tacoma.

“I really haven’t thought of any of that,” Thompson said. “All I’m thinking about now is the tournament.”

Thompson’s relentless game blends forceful drives, low-post putbacks; short, medium and beyond-the-arc jump shots, almost always double-digit rebounds and vocal on-court leadership.

She’ll finish her career as USC’s No. 6 all-time scorer. She surpassed 2,000 points in a February loss at Stanford when she scored 29, then last weekend claimed the Pac-10 scoring title from Starbird. She is averaging 22.7 points and 10.6 rebounds.

USC’s remaining four starters stand out occasionally, but none approaches Thompson’s consistency.

San Francisco is hoping to do at least as well in the tournament as it did last year. The Lady Dons upset Florida and Duke to reach the round of 16, before losing to Connecticut, 72-44.

USF (25-5) is significantly smaller than USC (19-8) and features tough defense, ball control and scoring balance. Its No. 2 scorer, Andrea Kagie (13 points a game), is the first player off the bench. Junior guard Brittany Lindhe leads the team at 14 points a game.