Stiles Has the Secret Formula

Arch madness.

That’s how it is, across Missouri this week.

And here comes Jackie Stiles, dribbling up the 44 Freeway from Springfield, Mo., on her way at last to the NCAA Final Four.

It’s fun to say she’s carrying her team on her back, but it upsets her (and her coach), so let’s let that go for a moment.

The 5-foot-8 Southwest Missouri State senior guard is in the midst of the most prodigious offensive display in the NCAA tournament since Texas Tech’s Sheryl Swoopes scored 177 points in the 1993 tournament, capped by 47 against Ohio State in the championship game.

Stiles is holding at 118, despite only 13 against Toledo in the first round, when she was whacked in the head and sat down with a concussion.

Even though she has led the nation in scoring the last two seasons, she was almost a well-kept secret, playing in a mid-major conference, the Missouri Valley, for four years. But TV tournament exposure has rocketed her up fast in the sporting public’s consciousness and she’s traveling up just as fast in the WNBA draft.

Even with two 32-2 teams, top-ranked Connecticut and Notre Dame, playing a rubber match in one national semifinal tonight, Missourians left no doubt where the Jackie Stiles Show ranks here.

When Southwest Missouri State (29-5) took the court at Savvis Center Thursday to prepare for tonight’s game against Purdue (30-6), there were roughly 5,000 Lady Bear partisans (only 800 of whom have tickets for tonight) greeting Stiles and her teammates with a standing ovation. And when Stiles drained her first dozen or so jump shots, the cheers grew louder with each ripple of the net.

The little girl with the toothsome smile, the double knee guards and the blond pony tail is closing out one of women’s basketball’s great careers. She’s the all-time NCAA career scoring leader and is closing with a rush.

She scored 73 points at the West Regional at Spokane, Wash., last weekend, leading her team to victories over Duke and Washington. Against Duke, she had 41 points.

There’s a lot to like.

If you liked the film “Hoosiers,” then you have to like this.

At tiny (pop. 600) Claflin, Kan., starting as a 12-year-old, she wouldn’t quit shooting a basketball until she’d made one thousand shots.

She lifted weights. She played on the tennis team to increase her lateral speed. She ran cross-country--and won championships--to gain stamina.

But no matter what, there had to be one thousand made jump shots every day, at either the playground or in the high school gym, if she was able to sneak in.

Also at age 12, she began attending Southwest Missouri State summer girls’ basketball camps, where early on a coach told her she had “Division I” potential.

“I was thrilled, because no one had said anything to me like that,” she recalled the other day.

Because she played for a small high school, she wasn’t on a lot of recruiting radar screens. But Connecticut’s Gene Auriemma saw her play and recruited her.

“I was really torn between UConn and SMS, and I actually signed a UConn letter of intent,” she said.

“But my Dad said to sleep on it before I mailed it. I did, and I called SMS and committed to them. They’d started recruiting me when I was 12, and they were just a six-hour drive from home. I feel I would have also fit in at UConn, but going to SMS was the best decision I’ve made in my life.”

Until Stiles exploded on the scene, it had been surmised that 6-foot-6 Australian Lauren Jackson would be the WNBA’s first draft pick next month.

Hold the phone.

“Jackie has a chance to be the first pick,” Houston Comet Coach Van Chancellor said Wednesday, watching her practice.

“She has a complete offensive game, she’s an impact player in our league. She’s very strong and she can penetrate with her drive and get to the line [where she shoots 89%], her pullup jumper has three-point range--I thought when the season started, she’d be the fifth, sixth pick.

“But the way she got those 17 points in seven minutes against Rutgers, that told me she’s not only going to win games in our league, she’s going to sell a lot of tickets.”

But what does the Seattle Storm’s Lin Dunn say? She owns the first pick.

“She has a chance to be that first pick,” she said Thursday. “I’m definitely considering her. She’ll definitely be a top-three pick.”

How about the way she got 41 against Duke, with defenders crawling all over her?

“She’s relentless,” Duke Coach Gail Goestenkors said. “She’s playing at a superior level the entire game. She’s in constant motion--she’s got the most desire to score than anybody I’ve ever seen.”

Against Washington Monday in the West final, Stiles got into early foul trouble, sat out 4 1/2 minutes and fouled out with 3:25 left--with 32 points.

During that regional, she became the first Division I player to score 1,000 points in a season.

Her team is the only Final Four team that hasn’t played a tournament game at home.

The Purdue coach, Kristy Curry, was asked how she planned to stop Stiles.

“Stop her? No one has. But we’re going to try,” she said. “Jackie has a tremendous will to score.”

Whatever scheme Purdue deploys, Stiles has seen it.

“We’ve seen every defense imaginable,” Southwest Missouri State Coach Cheryl Burnett said.

Burnett says Stiles has changed the way she coaches.

“Early in her career with us I’d tell her: ‘If you’re double-teamed, look for the open player.’

“Then I started saying: ‘If you’re double-teamed, take ‘em.’

“Now I’m saying: ‘If you’re triple-teamed, it might be a good idea to look for an open player. But if you think you can, take ‘em.’ ”

The team that calls itself “The Jackie Stiles Show” wants to keep it that way, notwithstanding blushing protests by Stiles.

Says teammate Tara Mitchem: “Jackie is a greater person than she is a basketball player. She goes out of her way to credit her teammates for getting us here.

“But really--it’s her.”

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COVERAGE

NO HOME-COURT ADVANTAGE

UCLA and USC are having trouble keeping local high school stars at home, Diane Pucin writes. D2