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Stanford's best all-time women's basketball teams, No. 6
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Jayne Appel was a junior in 2008-2009/Photo by Kyle Terada
There’s no need to refer to archives for our No. 6 all-time Stanford women’s basketball team, because it finished its season less than three months ago.
The 2008-2009 Cardinal team was without Candice Wiggins, who had graduated the previous year, and had to make some adjustments on the fly. But it ended up having an outstanding season, good enough to land at No. 6 in our all-time top 10. Plus, most of the team returns next season to make up a team that could be one of Stanford’s best.
The top 5 all-time Stanford teams will be revealed over the next few days, and today we look at a team still fresh in our memories.
No. 6: 2008-2009
This team lost five times, which would seem like too many defeats to rate this high a ranking. However, it finished the regular season ranked No. 2 in the country and seemed to be improving as the season went along until it met an overpowering Connecticut team in the national semifinals.
With Wiggins gone, the focus of the offense became junior center Jayne Appel. She responded in a big way, averaging 16.1 points (while shooting 60.2 percent from the floor) along with 9.2 rebounds and 1.8 blocks. She was the Pac-10 player of the year and a second-team All-American, with hopes of even bigger things in 2009-2010, especially after her 46-point performance in the Cardinal’s national quarterfinal victory over Iowa State. She was the Cardinal's only member of the five-player all-Pac-10 first team, but senior Jillian Harmon (10.8 points) and sophomore Jeanette Pohlen (12.1 points, 4.7 assists) were named to the second team. Sophomore Kayla Pedersen (10.8 points, 8.0 rebounds) was named to the third team.
Pohlen’s midseason adjustment from shooting guard to point guard was one of the main reasons for the Cardinal’s success. JJ Hones began the season as the Cardinal’s point guard, but in just her second game of the season (and Stanford’s fourth) she tore her anterior-cruciate ligament and was lost for the season. She was injured in the second quarter in what was one of the Cardinal’s best wins of the season, a 34-point blowout of then-No. 2 Rutgers.
The Cardinal was still adjusting to the loss of Hones when it lost road games to No. 8 Duke and No. 13 Tennessee, which was young and vulnerable but still difficult to beat in Knoxville. Stanford lost to then-No. 10 Cal by three points, which was certainly no disgrace, and Stanford seemed to take off early in the second half of the second game against Cal. The Bears were ranked No. 3 at the time of the second meeting and led by 10 points less than three minutes into the second half before the Cardinal went on a 25-3 run over the next 13 minutes enroute to a 17-point win.
Coach Tara VanDerveer did not settle on her best starting lineup until the next-to-last regular-season game. It was then that freshman Nneka Ogwumike was put in the starting lineup permanently, and the Cardinal seemed to improve every game thereafter.
Stanford blew out No. 9 Ohio State by 18 points in the third round of the NCAA Tournament, then knocked off No. 18 Iowa State by 21 when Appel had her 46-point game.
The Cardinal got handled rather easily by undefeated Connecticut 83-64 in the semifinals, but that matched the closest postseason game for the Huskies, who beat Louisville by 22 in the finals.
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