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Stanford's best all-time women's basketball teams, No. 9
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Nicole Powell (14) led the Pac-10 in rebounds and assists in 2002
AP photo by Rich Pedroncelli
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The No. 9 team in our list of the top 10 Stanford’s women’s basketball teams was close to being even better than it was, but injuries and bad luck cost it a few spots on the alltime ladder.
The 2001-2002 Cardinal had a wealth of talent led by Nicole Powell and Lindsey Yamasaki, and finished the season with a 32-3 mark and a final regular-season ranking of No. 5. And its ranking would have been No. 2 had it not been for a loss to Arizona State in the Pac-10 tournament title game when Yamsaski was sidelined.
The absence of guards Susan King and Jamie Carey may have prevented this team from being more successful, but ultimately its season was defined by a third-round loss to Colorado in the NCAA Tournament.
The top eight Stanford teams will be revealed in the upcoming days, and today we focus on No. 9.
No. 9: 2001-2002
Yamasaki and Powell were the heavy hitters on this team. Yamasaki, who also played volleyball, was the team’s top scorer, averaging 17.2 points as a starter after coming off the bench for the most part the previous two seasons. She earned all-conference honors in 2002 as a senior.
However, the team’s star was sophomore Powell, who averaged 16.6 points and earned the distinction becoming the first Pac-10 player – male or female – to lead the conference in both rebounding (9.3) and assists (6.3). Powell, who was named Pac-10 player of the year and a second-team All-American that season, had five double doubles in 2001-2002; Stanford had had only two double doubles in all the prior seasons.
Powell and Yamasaki were the established members of the starting five, while the other three starting spots changed a bit as the season evolved. Bethany Donaphin, T’Nae Thiel and freshman Kelley Suminski were the other primary starters, but Lauren St. Clair, Cori Enghusen and Enjoli Izidor also started games as nine players averaged more than 12 minutes a game.
Two players who were not factors were Carey and King. Carey, a guard, had been the Pac-10 freshman of the year in 2000 but had to sit out the next two seasons because of concussion problems. She transferred to Texas after the 2002 season. King was expected to be the point guard in 2002, and after missing the first eight games with knee problems, she jumped into the starting lineup in her first game back against Tennessee. But in her second game, she tore her anterior cruciate ligament and was lost for the season. As a result, Powell acted much like a point forward in directing the attack.
The Cardinal lost the December 16 game at home to No. 2 Tennessee by six points after leading with three minutes to go, then reeled off 22 straight wins while going 18-0 in the Pac-10. The streak was halted and the Cardinal bumped from its No. 2 ranking when it lost to Arizona State 70-63 in the conference tournament finals after the Cardinal had built a nine-point lead early in the second half.
Yamasaki did not play in that game because she had had an appendectomy a few days earlier, but she played in the NCAA Tournament as the Cardinal rolled to easy wins at home in its first two postseason games.
But the season ended in a three-point loss to No. 12-ranked Colorado in the round of 16, as Powell opted not to attempt a three-pointer in the closing seconds on a play designed for her. Instead, she passed to Yamasaki, whose three-point try with four seconds left went awry.
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