LAS VEGAS — Stanford cut down a basketball net Sunday afternoon.
The Cardinal expect to be cutting down a few more in the coming weeks.
“If (Cameron) Brink and (Haley) Jones both get going, they’ll cut down the nets in Minneapolis,” said Utah coach Lynne Roberts. “I do think they’re the best team in the country.
“I think they’re better than they were last year. And last year they won the national championship.”
Stanford officially began its defense of that national championship at the Michelob Ultra Arena at Mandalay Bay, winning the Pac-12 tournament for the second consecutive time, beating Utah 73-48. But in truth, the Cardinal have been defending it for 11 months.
“I think (the defense) started as soon as we won last year,” said Haley Jones, the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player. “We have a target on our back. We know what it takes to get there, but we’ll will have to work twice as hard because everyone is coming after us.
“I’m excited.”
Winning is extremely commonplace for the Cardinal. This was the 15th time Stanford had won the tournament in its 21 years of existence. It was the Cardinal’s 20th straight win and 34th in a row over Pac-12 opponents. It was Tara VanDerveer’s 1,001st win as Stanford coach.
But the wins in the past week were particularly exciting. The trip to Vegas was a far different experience than it was last March, when Stanford won in a strange Vegas bubble in front of only a handful of family members. It took the team just a few minutes to cut down the nets because there were no on-court interviews, no cheering fans. The Cardinal went on to win everything a month later in the San Antonio bubble, doing Zoom interviews and isolated from most people.
On Sunday, the arena was lively and rocking and filled with fans not only of both teams in the title game but of women’s basketball, fans who had been robbed from seeing tournament play last year. Many supporters of other teams who had already been eliminated stuck around for the final. Las Vegas Aces owner Mark Davis was sitting courtside, next to former Stanford guard Jennifer Azzi and her wife Blair Hardiek, who both work for Davis and the Aces. Stanford as usual had its glamour element: The Seahawks’ Russell Wilson and his wife, Ciara, were behind the bench, supporting the quarterback’s sister, Anna Wilson.
The Pac-12 is a loaded conference, and last year’s NCAA Tournament brought a ton of attention to that fact and solidified fans’ commitment. Oregon has a rabid fan base. Arizona’s run to the title game in 2021 grew its fan base exponentially. Utah fans made the six-hour drive to see their team. And, as always, Stanford fans turned out.
“It’s definitely better to have all the fans,” Brink said. “It’s completely different. But I wouldn’t take back last year for anything. It’s why our team is so close.”
The closeness not only of the basketball team but of all Stanford athletes was on display in Las Vegas, as the team honored Katie Meyer, the Stanford soccer star who died by suicide last week. As they had all week, the Cardinal players wore Meyer’s initials on their wrist tape and warmed up in soccer shirts.
“Katie was an incredible person in every way,” Stanford’s Lexie Hull said. “To be able to win, I know she would have been one of the biggest…”
Hull couldn’t finish. She broke down in tears in the postgame news conference. Jones stepped in to finish the answer.
“I think going into this tournament we have very heavy hearts,” Jones said. “We tried to embody her spirit. … To be able to win and bring this home and be with our Stanford family is really special. We did a good job of embodying that.”
Now the Cardinal will have a full week to refocus before they learn their NCAA path. The women’s tournament selection show will take place next Sunday — a change from past years of Selection Monday. The change comes because the women’s tournament now has a “First Four” like the men — part of college sports’ gender-equity-inspired changes — and those teams need time to travel to those early games.
The Cardinal have the chance to be the No. 1 overall seed and maybe the top-ranked team in the country, thanks to South Carolina’s stunning loss to Kentucky in the SEC tournament final. But that distinction is more about bragging rights than any real bracketology.
Stanford knows it will host its first two games at home. It will likely head to Spokane, Wash., for the regional — VanDerveer wants the Hull twins, Lexie and Lacie, to play in their hometown. The Final Four is in Minneapolis.
Stanford is seasoned and ready, thanks to the difficult preseason schedule VanDerveer loves (including a loss to No. 1 South Carolina) and the challenging Pac-12. The Cardinal was undefeated in the deep and talented league.
And like Utah’s Roberts said, they are the best team in the country. Even if they don’t get the recognition they deserve.
“They should be talked about more,” Roberts said. “But Tara has a way of ignoring it and just chopping wood. She’s the ‘GOAT’ for that reason.”
VanDerveer doesn’t care. No. 1 in the country? The top seed?
“I leave the seeding and bracketology to other people,” VanDerveer said. “To me, it’s irrelevant. I just want to focus on our team improving and staying healthy.”
The championship defense has officially begun.
Ann Killion is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @annkillion
