SAN JOSE, Calif. - The Stanford Cardinal had one tick left on the shot clock, a very high inbound pass to make and the UCLA Bruins coming at them like the
IRS at tax time. There was no set play, only necessity. The Cardinal
desperately needed the ball in the hands of their best player, Nicole Powell.
Darned if it didn't end up there, too, some
five feet beyond the three-point arc, where the All-American buried a shot
that, for all intents and purposes, buried the Bruins in their Pac-10
Conference Tournament semifinal matchup.
"You have
one second," said Kelley Suminski, who made the inbound to Powell with 1:56
to play in the Stanford's 69-64 victory over UCLA. "There are no plays."
Well, just one, that
is.
"Nicole was open and she was a good option,"
Cardinal Coach Tara VanDerveer said with a smile. "Out team understands who
needs to have the ball at key times."
They'd get no arguments from the Bruins on that. It wouldn't take much to
convince UCLA that, when special plays need to be made, the ball migrates to the hands of
the special players. The Bruins had been struck by Powell's lightning once
before - an instant before the halftime buzzer of a tight Cardinal win at
Pauley Pavilion, where the Stanford star chased down her own miss and heaved
in a deep three.
"It was a deep flashback," Bruin
Coach Kathy Olivier said of Powell's hoist. "There's the reason she's one of
the best players in the country."
UCLA's star,
Michelle Greco, was underneath the basket when the pass was made to Powell.
She instantly knew it was trouble.
"She certainly was
not the player we want to have the ball," Greco said of Powell, "with one
second remaining."
Greco may have been the Bruin
most disappointed at the turn of events. Her hyperkenetic play helped spark
a furious Bruin rally from 15 down with just 10:05 to play. UCLA came all
the way back, twice forging leads, on Lisa Willis' fifth three of the game
with 3:50 left and Jamila Veasley's pair of free throws with 2:54 to play.
The conference's team leaders in steals, the Bruins literally were
attempting to burglar a win, producing 17 thefts and forcing 24 Stanford
turnovers.
But Powell's three-pointer, staking her to
a game-high 18 points to go with game-high 15 rebounds, provided, as
VanDerveer put it, "the emotional boost" for the Cardinal to fend off
UCLA.
The Bruins nevertheless hope the showing made a
strong case for their selection at 18-11 to the NCAA tournament. After all,
it had required a special showing from their own special player, Greco.
Early in the game, Greco took a shot from
teammate Whitney Jones, requiring the two-time Pac-10 scoring champ to don a
transperant, protective mask. She just happened to have a perfectly formed
model on hand, courtesy of a broken nose she'd suffered in a pickup game
against men last summer. Greco sought out the action just after being
cleared to play this season; she had to sit out almost the entire 2001-02
season because of a history of mild concussions.
The
Bruin senior always brings the mask with her on the road, she says, "because
I have bad luck."
No exaggeration. Greco turned an
ankle and clashed heads with an Oregon Duck during the Bruins' first-round
game on Saturday. However, "I put all that stuff in the back of my head,"
she said. "We were here to battle."
And battle they
did. Until Nicole Powell took the fight out of them with an eerily familiar,
three-point bolt.