Dave Trimmer: West Coast gets little respect

TAMPA, Fla. – If it seems the West Coast is lagging behind in women’s basketball that’s because it is – sort of.

Sure, Stanford plays Tennessee in the NCAA championship game tonight at 5:30 on ESPN, a chance for the spotlight to shine on the West for the first time in more than a decade.

“Because of time zone things, a lot of people are not familiar with West Coast basketball,” Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer said prior to the Final Four. “There are some people that don’t think there’s much going on in terms of great basketball on the West Coast so we do feel that we are representing the West Coast, not just the Pac-10, but all the West Coast programs, and we want to do a great job.”

All talk about the West basically means Stanford, which has been in 21 straight NCAA tournaments.

Before this Final Four it had been 11 years since a West Coast team made the trip and the last national title came in 1992. It was Stanford both times, which also won the 1990 championship.

Other than Stanford, the only team to make a significant mark on the national scene has been Southern Cal, which won it all in 1983 and ‘84 and lost in the ‘86 championship, a run that coincided with Cheryl Miller’s career.

“There was a feeling that the best team on the West Coast, the best team in the West Regional, the best team west of the Mississippi, is always going to be Stanford,” Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma said. “You knew that there wasn’t anybody going to come out of that region other than them.”

The Pac-10 is the only major conference in the West and, obviously, that’s only 10 teams.

“We don’t have as many teams, just that one power conference,” Gonzaga coach Kelly Graves said. “They’re considered ‘The West Coast.’ All the rest of us kind of get lumped in together.”

The other big conferences are the Big East (16 teams), ACC (12 teams), Southeastern (12), Big Ten (11) and Big 12.

In between Stanford’s Final Fours the other five power leagues have had numerous teams in the finals, and mid-majors have been represented three times.

“As the tournament has expanded and it’s gotten more competitive a lot more good teams are being spread all over the country,” Auriemma said. “So it’s gotten harder and harder to get to the Final Four. Eleven years for a program like Stanford is a long time.

“There were probably times Stanford felt like it could get to the Final Four. This team can compete for a national championship. Then you get the wrong matchup, you get an injury, you get a team you’re not comfortable with, and the next thing you know you’re out.”

But that’s just speaking to the Cardinal.

It goes even deeper than that. During Stanford’s 10 years without a Final Four the Pac-10 had 40 entries in the tournament. The Big Ten had the next fewest with 49, followed by the ACC (53), Big East (56), Big 12 (57) and SEC (64).

This year the Pac-10 had three teams in the tournament, the Big Ten four, the SEC five, the ACC six and the Big East and Big 12 eight apiece.

The Left Coast has become the Limp Coast.

Washington State coach June Daugherty respectfully disagrees.

“If you look back the last four years, we’ve had four, six and five teams, then three this year,” she said. “That’s out of 10 teams. That’s pretty good.”

Several factors contributed to the Pac-10 being down behind Stanford, California and Arizona State.

“What happened this year, as a league, we have a lot of young kids,” Daugherty said. “Another thing is we have had coaching changes in the league. And, unfortunately, pretty early in our preseason there were a lot of impact injuries. …

“All that stuff disrupts, rocks the boat. But we still didn’t have the preseason we needed to have as a conference.”

Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer pinpointed a few reasons that Daugherty and Graves mentioned: location, competition, retention of local talent, television.

“Geographically, we’re different. There are not as many schools out here,” VanDerveer said. “I think they can play great competition without having huge travel expenses. The best thing for us this year has been playing a great schedule. Going and beating Rutgers at Rutgers, beating Tennessee, playing UConn (and) Old Dominion in the Paradise Jam, beating Baylor.

“Competition, I think, is the best thing to help.”

Gonzaga played a second- round game in the WNIT this year at Colorado, the ninth-place team in the Big 12, and lost 82-68.

“The Colorado coach made a great comment,” Graves said. “She said, ‘The Big 12 really prepared us.’ They probably improve more because of who they have to play against game in and game out.

“Let’s face it, the Pac-10 hasn’t been that deep the last few years. You maybe aren’t getting tested like you are in those other conferences.”

Getting big games isn’t cheap.

“Do they want to use resources to travel or attract those games?” Daugherty said. “You play a home-and-home with a UConn or you pay a lot of money to bring a Top 10 in. We need to play those teams and beat those teams, but we need the resources to do that.”

Then there is the matter of not letting the Diana Taurasi’s of the world escape from California to win three national championships at UConn.

“Some of that, I think, is related to television,” VanDerveer said. “They might see East Coast programs and a lot of times we grow up thinking that something is better where we’re not.

“Like we’re in the West Coast, East Coast is better, or when I was on the Midwest, Southern basketball was better. But we have great basketball on the West Coast. We need it to develop.”

Graves said, “TV has really helped on the men’s side. A lot of teams are getting on TV so that’s not a big deal now. The women are getting on TV, but in the Pac-10 it’s just FoxSports regional.”

“That’s where our athletic directors, presidents, administration need to take a hard look what they really want for their basketball programs out West,” she said. “If you want us to be like a Big 12 and have eight teams or get back to six teams or even more, because we have great academic institutions, we have to look at what’s happening nationally and what we’re willing to do.”

The future could be bright.

Stanford will only start one senior tonight.

Daugherty said several teams have signed highly regarded recruiting classes for next year.

“The fact kids will get healthy and be a year older will help us,” Daugherty said. “I’ve been coaching 24 years. You watch these things go through cycles.”