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		Morris Phillips on Stanford Basketball By Morris Phillips April 5, 2010

	Sportstalk: No matter how you look at it Morris, the championship on Tuesday night could very well be the most thrilling, nail biter of the past Stanford Final Four games. What's to be expected on Tuesday night in San Antonio in a game that's should be incredibly intense? First a bit of history. Stanford has had a pair of nail biters in the Final Four that will be hard to top. In 1992, Stanford had just enough to get by Virginia, with U.S. Olympian Dawn Staley and the Burge twins, 66-65, in a national semifinal. Molly Goodenbour then led Stanford past Western Kentucky in the championship game for the second national title for the Cardinal. In 1997, Stanford rolled into the Final Four ranked second nationally, sporting a 34-1 record. But the Cardinal got no further, when Ticha Penichero, the longtime Sacramento Monarch, hit a shot at the buzzer to beat Stanford, 87-86 in overtime. The next year, Stanford lost its NCAA opener to Harvard, becoming the first and only No.1 seed to lose to a No. 16 seed. It took 11 years after that surprising loss for Stanford to get back to the Final Four in 2008. Now if those type of big finishes come to pass on Tuesday, this will be the biggest game in the history of women's college basketball without a doubt. Already, this will be the first time the two finalists come in with just one loss between them. More significantly, Stanford is the only opponent that can truly say they have what it takes to topple the top-ranked Huskies. If it happens on the big stage of the championship, the game will be memorable like Michigan State-Indiana State in 1979 and UCLA-Houston in 1968 are for the men's game. All that being said, Stanford will need to play extremely well to beat UConn. In Coach Tara VanDerveer's 25 years at Stanford, this is undoubtedly her most talented and experienced team, even more so than either of the two national champions she's coached. That a team as talented as Stanford will have to pull a major upset to win on Tuesday says everything about how incredibly accomplished and talented Connecticut is. Sportstalk: Nnemkadi Ogwumike was the MVP in this one hitting the bucket for 38 points and pulling down 16 rebounds she carried a lot of the load with Jayne Appel playing on a bad ankle. Talk about the job that Ogwumike did in this one and the effort that Appel had to apply when she played with the injured ankle? The one negative on either side leading into Tuesday's game is that Appel is not 100 percent. Last year, she was arguably the best player in college basketball, with the argument, of course, including UConn's Maya Moore. Appel was in incredible physical shape and unstoppable with her long arms, great hands and ability to finish in the paint. This year, she's just not quite right, from the ankle to the knee surgery before the season. Against Oklahoma, she was pretty good, avoiding foul trouble and contributing 10 points. But she's just not where she was. But Stanford has another star in Ogwumike, a player who has size and athleticism that will bother UConn. Undoubtedly, UConn will come at her with aggressive double teams whenever she touches the ball in the paint. If Ogwumike plays as well Tuesday as she did against Oklahoma, that's an incredible plus for Stanford. Sportstalk: What a finish with the Sooners getting within three points with a minute left, after they were down by 18. What saved the Cardinal from self-destructing in the last few minutes in what could have been a pressured type finish? Probably, the close call against Xavier helped them a lot. When you’re a dominant team, experience in close games is hard to find. Against Oklahoma, Stanford just didn't shoot well enough to run away with it, and the Sooners made a game of it when they finally started making some shots.