Stanford left at No. 2

The basketballs have been stored, the scorer’s table folded and even one of their coaches has resigned, but that didn’t keep the UCLA and USC women’s basketball teams from playing a key role in the NCAA tournament selections that were announced Monday.

Stanford was expected to be named one of the four top-seeded teams in the 64-team field that’s scheduled to begin play this weekend, but back-to-back Pacific 10 Conference losses in Los Angeles during early January didn’t escape the memory of the selection committee, who seeded the Cardinal No. 2 behind Maryland in the Spokane (Wash.) Regional.

“I would be remiss not to say the two losses they sustained to Southern Cal and UCLA also influenced several of our committee members,” said Judy Southard, chair of the NCAA women’s basketball committee.

In addition to winning regular season and Pac-10 tournament titles, Stanford (30-3) defeated another top-seeded team, Tennessee, in a nonconference game this season. The Cardinal also finished the regular season ranked No. 4 in the nation by the Associated Press, one spot ahead of Maryland.

Stanford Coach Tara VanDerveer agreed that the Cardinal did not perform well at UCLA and USC, when it came in ranked No. 2 in the nation. However, she pointed out that Maryland (30-3) also struggled to defeat UCLA during a nonconference game at Pauley Pavilion in November, trailing by 16 points with 6 1/2 minutes remaining before pulling out a four-point victory.

“It could have happened to them, but they pulled it off,” she said.

In the Greensboro (N.C.) Regional, a grudge match could arrive sooner than later as top-seeded Connecticut (32-1) was put with Big East Conference rival Rutgers (24-6), the only team to defeat the Huskies this season.

Southard said her committee spent additional hours attempting to place the Scarlet Knights in another regional but nothing else made sense.

“Quite frankly, any move that we would’ve made would have compromised the competitive equity of the bracket,” she said. “We felt like that was something we needed to protect.”

If the Scarlet Knights win their opener, they could face Iowa State in the second round. In five of the last six years, Rutgers has been forced to play a second-round game at, or near, an opponent’s home site. Rutgers Coach C. Vivian Stringer, however, is also well known in the region, having spent 12 seasons coaching at Iowa.

“There are an awful lot of people that respect her and have followed her career,” Southard said.

Competing in the same regional is UC Santa Barbara, which won the Big West Conference title to qualify for the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2005. The 13th-seeded Gauchos are scheduled to play fourth-seeded Virginia on Sunday in Norfolk, Va.

Santa Barbara (23-7) played host to Maryland, another Atlantic Coast Conference team, in November and lost by four points. Coach Mark French anticipated the Gauchos would be seeded 14th, so he was pleased the team was “theoretically better.”

French, 58, said shortly after the announcement that he knew little about the Cavaliers, other than they play in a tough, athletic conference and their coach, Debbie Ryan, “is almost as old as I am, and I always like that situation.”

In the New Orleans Regional, high-scoring North Carolina (30-2) is seeded No. 1; and Louisiana State (27-5), another team thought to be among the nation’s four best, is No. 2.

In the Oklahoma City Regional, Tennessee (30-2) is the top-seeded team. Texas A&M; (26-7), which has won 13 of its last 14 games, including four against ranked opponents, is No. 2.

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dan.arritt@latimes.com