Stanford Waiting for This

Today’s Kansas City Regional clash between Stanford and Connecticut, matching up teams that have won a combined seven NCAA women’s basketball championships, is the kind of duel that many fans expect to see in a Final Four, or at least a regional final.

Instead it will be the second of the Kansas City Regional’s semifinals, following Michigan State against Vanderbilt.

Stanford (31-2), seeded second, has done its best to downplay any disappointment about not being seeded No. 1 after ending the regular season as the nation’s top-ranked team. But the Cardinal players suggest the decision was another example of the selection committee’s lack of respect for the Pacific 10 Conference.

Unless Stanford reaches the Final Four, which the Cardinal last visited in 1997, it will have few better chances to demonstrate its worthiness. Stanford Coach Tara VanDerveer isn’t thinking that way -- “a wasted effort,” she said -- but her senior-laden Cardinal squad is.

“For some reason the [selection] committee doesn’t seem to think the Pac-10 or the West has the power to go all the way,” said Stanford forward Azella Perryman. “So, if anything, we’re glad we get to play the UConns and the Tennessees on the way to a Final Four. Because we can show people we just didn’t get here on a golden road paved for a No. 1 seed.”

The third-seeded Huskies (25-7) are five-time champions overall, have won the last three NCAA titles and haven’t lost in the Sweet 16 since 1999, when they were upset by Iowa State. They haven’t lost in the tournament at all since 2001, when they fell to eventual national champion Notre Dame. They are 30-1 during this NCAA stretch and have a 20-game winning streak in the tournament, one shy of the record set by Tennessee from 1996 to ’99.

Connecticut Coach Geno Auriemma says his team is playing “its best basketball of the season,” but acknowledges that Stanford provides a critical test.

“A lot of what happens on Sunday depends on if we get [behind],” Auriemma said. “Stanford is probably the best offensive team we’ve played this year. So how we’ll handle it if they score quickly and often.... I don’t know.

“We’ve had adversity this season, and I’m a firm believer that adversity builds character. The [seven losses] in some ways made us question ourselves more. And it took us a long time to turn that corner.”

If the attention on the Stanford-Connecticut game allows top-seeded Michigan State (30-3) and fifth-seeded Vanderbilt (24-7) to fly below the radar, that suits Commodore Coach Melanie Balcomb fine.

“I like being a spoiler, and I think our team likes that,” Balcomb said.

Michigan State Coach Joanne P. McCallie just hopes her team plays with a “reckless abandon” that she says was missing from the Spartans “until that last play against USC,” in which they scrambled for a loose ball to barely salvage a 61-59 victory that put them in the regional semifinals.