UW Star Can’t Lack Incentive Vanderbilt’s Oversight A Factor In First-Round Women’s Matchup
Vanderbilt coach Jim Foster hazily recalls having met Laure Savasta four years ago.
Savasta, now a University of Washington senior guard, was looking for an American college where she could attend and play basketball. In the World Championships in Seoul, South Korea, her French national team met the U.S. junior team coached by Foster.
After the French club knocked off the Americans by one point to take sixth place, Savasta met and talked to the Vanderbilt coach.
Through the help of former Husky Karen Deden, a friend who played with Savasta on a team in Nice, France, she followed up the post-game chat with a telephone call.
Interest on the other end of the line did not exude sign-on-the-dotted-line enthusiasm.
“I’m recalling some phone conversations,” Foster said by telephone from his office in Nashville, Tenn., on Thursday. “We sort of lost contact. It was a preliminary sort of discussion, and it’s pretty vague. I don’t remember much.”
Savasta will have a chance to etch her image into the long-term memory of Foster in a first-round contest of the women’s NCAA Tournament Saturday in Lawrence, Kan.
The Vanderbilt slight was UW’s gain.
Deden called her former coach, Washington’s Chris Gobrecht and Savasta signed on, developing into one of the best and most popular players in UW history.
Current UW coach June Daugherty has called her “one of the best players in the world at catching and shooting the 3.”
The numbers back that assertion. Savasta is hitting 41 percent on 3-point attempts (42 of 103) for the season to lead the Huskies in 3-point shooting efficiency.
And, the shooting guard goes into the tournament as the Huskies’ hottest player.
In the last two weeks of the season, when the Huskies’ chances to make the tournament appeared to be fading, Savasta willed the team to wins.
Among her late-season heroics:
She scored 20 points overall and rallied the Huskies in the second half for an upset victory over Arizona.
She hit the game-winning jumper in the Huskies’ one-point road victory over UCLA.
She scored 24 points against USC to lead UW to victory in its final regular-season game.
Three Savasta-led victories. One NCAA invitation.
“I think right now, I’m at the top of my game,” Savasta said. “I’m really back to my game.”
Savasta’s game is running off post picks on the baseline, popping open and shooting the 3.
It is a pattern Foster has recognized as he formed a defensive game plan.
“I think they’re a great basketball team,” he said. “I think it will be a good game. Their frontcourt players set very good picks and they have people that can shoot it.”
xxxx ON DECK Saturday: UW women vs. Vanderbilt