ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, November 17, 1996 TAG: 9611180115
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tennessee is the defending national champion. Tara VanDerveer is back at Stanford. Marianne Stanley has her own team. One of Stanley's former teams, Old Dominion, is a power again.
Yes, there's a familiar look to women's basketball, even as two professional leagues add a new dimension to a sport that's bound to get a lift from the success of the U.S. Olympic team this past summer.
Many of the prominent names in the women's game are the same, starting with Tennessee.
Coach Pat Summitt's Lady Vols won their fourth NCAA championship this past March, beating Georgia in an all-Southeastern Conference final. Summitt lost starting guards Michelle Marciniak, the Final Four MVP, and Latina Davis and was dealt an additional setback when point guard Kellie Jolly was sidelined by torn knee ligaments this fall.
But Chamique Holdsclaw is back after earning third-team All-America honors as a freshman last season, so Summitt has enough talent to be a force again.
Still, keeping a national championship is harder than winning one. In 15 years of NCAA women's play, Southern Cal is the only repeat champion, winning in 1983 and 1984.
``It's tough,'' Summitt said. ``It can take a toll on you if you don't handle it well.''
The pressure is off the Lady Vols in one regard, because Stanford looks to be the preseason favorite for the NCAA title.
Ten players are back from the Cardinal's Final Four team, and VanDerveer has returned as coach after spending a year guiding the Olympic team to a gold medal.
``This Stanford team and the Olympic team were both really motivated and the players have really high goals,'' VanDerveer said. ``So in that way, it's really fun. It just feels like I'm doing what I did all last year.''
Stanford's best player is 6-foot-2 senior Kate Starbird, a second-team All-American last season.
While VanDerveer was gone, co-coaches Amy Tucker and Stanley took the Cardinal to a 29-3 record. Tucker has returned to her role as an assistant, and Stanley has moved across San Francisco Bay to take over a struggling program at Cal.
Before being hired by Stanford last season, Stanley spent three years away from basketball, unable to get a job after filing an $8 million discrimination lawsuit against her former employer, Southern California. She claimed she deserved the same compensation as the USC men's coach at the time, George Raveling.
She's grateful for the opportunity to have her own team again.
``Having been removed from the game arbitrarily at SC and having struggled to get back into it, I have an even greater awareness of how important and valuable what I do is,'' Stanley said. ``So I'm just enjoying every single day.''
Old Dominion catapulted to national prominence when Stanley coached there, winning three national titles with such players as Nancy Lieberman, Anne Donovan, Inge Nissen and Medina Dixon.
Under coach Wendy Larry, the Lady Monarchs are loaded again. Four starters return from a team that went 27-3 and reached the third round of the NCAA Tournament before losing to Virginia, led by 6-5 Clarisse Machanguana of Mozambique and point guard Ticha Penicheiro of Portugal.
``This is a very special group of individuals,'' Larry said. ``We have good leaders, good workers and, most importantly, good people. Plus, these players are very hungry.''
The success of the U.S. Olympic team, which toured the nation during the 1995-96 season and drew crowds of more than 30,000 in Atlanta, dovetailed nicely with the creation of not one but two professional women's leagues.
The eight-team American Basketball League began play in mid-October, and the NBA will start a women's league in eight of its cities during the summer of 1997. The two leagues give U.S. athletes a long-awaited chance to play for pay in their own country rather than overseas.
``Kids now see a future for themselves,'' said Geno Auriemma, Connecticut's coach and a one-time Virginia assistant. ``They see that if they work at this game, really spend a lot of time on it, `If I get really good, there's a future for me.' That didn't exist in the past.''
One of Auriemma's players, 6-7 senior Kara Wolters, will be coveted by both leagues.
``People say, `Look at what could be out there when you're done,''' Wolters said. ``But I don't want to think about being done yet. I have so much work here before I can think about that.''
Wolters is the only first-team All-American from last season who is back. Starbird is the only second-team player returning, while Holdsclaw, Alabama's Shalonda Enis and Penn State's Angie Potthoff return from the third team.
With former national champions Texas and Texas Tech as members, the Big 12 should be a big deal in women's basketball in its inaugural season. The two former Southwest Conference schools are aligned with traditionally strong programs at Colorado and Kansas from the old Big Eight Conference.
The new league has seven teams that played in this year's NCAA Tournament - Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma State, Nebraska, Texas, Texas Tech and Texas A&M.
``When you've got [coaches] Marsha Sharp, Jody Conradt, Sonja Hogg and Candi Harvey in your league, you're talking some pretty heavy hitters,'' said Bill Fennelly, Iowa State's coach.
The Western Athletic Conference has added Air Force, Hawaii, Nevada-Las Vegas, San Jose State, Rice, Southern Methodist, Texas Christian and Tulsa to its women's basketball lineup. Tulsa is fielding a women's team for the first time since the 1986-87 season.
But for sheer power, look to the SEC again. Seven of the conference's 12 teams played in last season's NCAA Tournament, and an SEC team reached each of the four regional finals.
Another round of brutal competition is expected in that league again this season.
``I think it helps you if you can survive and make it through the season and be hanging around at the end of the year, because you have to compete at that level every single night on the floor,'' said Alabama coach Rick Moody, whose team lost to Stanford in overtime in a West Regional semifinal.
Stanley's hiring at Cal was among several prominent coaching changes.
Purdue fired Lin Dunn, who had taken the Boilermakers to the Final Four in 1994, over NCAA rules violations and replaced her with former Louisiana Tech assistant Nell Fortner, one of VanDerveer's Olympic assistants. Florida State dumped Marynell Meadors after an 8-20 season and hired Washington's Chris Gobrecht. June Daugherty moved from Boise State to succeed Gobrecht
LENGTH: Long : 118 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP Before being hired by Stanford in 1995, new Calby CNBcoach Marianne Stanley (center) was unable to get a basketball job
for three years after filing a suit against Southern Cal.|