Some memories don’t fade away

With three trips to the Final Four among the memories of her five years as a Stanford basketball player, Regan Freuen Drew’s reaction to The Question is understandable.

“Oh,” the Mead girls basketball coach said with a sigh, “the thing everyone wants to bring up every year.”

It was on ESPN2 again Monday, when Candice Wiggins was torching UTEP for 44 points to lead Stanford to the Sweet 16 in Spokane this weekend. “It” is a 10-year old clip of history, when Harvard became the only 16th-seeded team in a NCAA basketball tournament to win, knocking off Stanford 71-67 in the first round of the 1998 women’s tournament.

“Honestly, I kind of laugh about it now,” Drew, a Mead alum, said of that fateful day that ended her junior season. “Harvard played great and they had a great player. Some good things came out of that. It was not a great day. It stuck with us a long time, but that experience challenged kids to work harder. Those things do that.

“We were more upset about not accomplishing our goal than the 16 and 1 numbers.”

What many people forget is Vanessa Nygaard and Kristin Folkl, who combined for about 30 points, 20 rebounds and 60 minutes a game, went down with ACL injuries less than a week apart, one in the final game of the regular season, the other in practice before the tourney.

Brushing aside the reminders, Drew is excited to see the team.

“With my coaching, my busy time is in line with their busy time,” she said. “They have an alumni day each year, but I always have games and can’t leave.”

Long-time coach Tara VanDerveer is a connection and assistants Bobbie Kelsey and Kate Paye were her teammates.

“When we get together … we talk about other things than (coaching),” she said. “I don’t see them that much any more. It’s mostly just catching up. We talk about dynamics, personalities of the kids you’re coaching, but there hasn’t been much talk about coaching.”

There are plenty of memories when you go to the Final Four as a freshman and sophomore and accompany the team that made the championship game the next year while redshirting with an injury.

“You remember experiences you had as a team,” Drew said. “You go through so much. Special moments make it so memorable. It’s not specific plays, wins or losses, it’s the memories you have with each other.”

Another came to light as Wiggins was scoring 44 points, tying the school record.

“I can believe it,” she said. “I was there when Kate Starbird set the single-game record against USC (1996). I can imagine the energy in Maples (Pavilion).”

Local connections

So far we can’t connect Vanderbilt to Spokane, but the rest of the teams headed this way have some connections to the area.

For Maryland, the mother of assistant coach Daron Park, Janet Clemons Weaver, is a graduate of University High School. His grandparents also still live here.

Stanford gets a nod for more than Drew and her former teammate Heather Owen, a Moscow grad practicing law in Palo Alto, Calif. The Cardinal make the annual trip to Pullman for a Pac-10 game. Starbird, who graduated from Lakes in Tacoma, played with the Spokane Stars before enrolling at Stanford.

As for Pittsburgh, assistant coach Shea Ralph played in the 1997 AAU national tournament hosted by the Spokane Stars. Then she went to become a prolific scorer at Connecticut, win a national championship and suffer several serious knee injuries. The injuries snuffed her hope of playing professionally. She coached one year in the National Women’s Basketball League before Agnus Berenato hired her when she took over at Pitt in 2003.

Ho hum

Try as we might, it’s hard to get goose bumps over the NCAA women’s basketball championship.

Don’t get that confused with not being excited about the regional tournament at the Arena this weekend.

The Regional features four outstanding teams, the same as in the Greensboro Regional, New Orleans Regional and Oklahoma City Regional.

The problem is the women’s tournament doesn’t provoke the opening-weekend memories that come from monumental upsets.

While the men’s tournament has three double-figure seeds in the Sweet 16, the women’s tournament only had three first-round games that didn’t go to form, if you count a No. 9 on its home court beating a No. 8 an upset. Otherwise, it was No. 11 Florida State over No. 6 Ohio State and No. 10 Hartford over No. 7 Syracuse. Both double-digit seeds were gone in the second round.

It’s hard to capture the public’s imagination that way.

WNIT update

Here’s a short note from the other tournament. Of the 16 teams, 15 from BCS schools, that had a first-round bye in the 48-team tournament, 13 won their second-round game, including Colorado beating Gonzaga on Monday. The only three teams to win two games are Villanova, James Madison and Southern Mississippi.

Tip-ins

Arena game times on Saturday are No. 1 Maryland (32-3) vs. No. 4 Vanderbilt (25-8) at 6 p.m., No. 2 Stanford (32-3) vs. No. 6 Pittsburgh (24-10), about 8:30. The regional championship on Monday is at 6:30 p.m. … About 1,100 tickets remain, available at TicketsWest locations. Single-session tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday. The cost is $21 plus any service fees. … More tickets will be available for the championship game on Monday after teams that lose on Saturday return tickets. … The open practices run Friday from noon to 4 p.m. … Practice on Sunday is not open.