On Sunday, Stanford women’s basketball received a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Their #1 seed is for one of the two Seattle regions. Stanford will open up at home against the winner of the Southern/Sacred heart game on Friday, March 17th. Tip-off time is TBD.
Video: Selection Sunday Press Conference
“It’s hard to believe it’s really March and we’re gonna be playing in the NCAA Tournament,” Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer said on Sunday after finding out their seed. “We kinda knew it, but when you see your name up on the board, I was really excited and we know that, I mean, all the brackets are extremely competitive, so there’s no easy going from here on out. But we have a play-in game [opponent], so we know we have one game and we’re gonna focus on our first game on Friday and we’ll be ready to go.”
For Stanford, getting this #1 seed is big. Especially since there were some questions coming in of as to whether or not they’d get one. Despite a couple of losses down the stretch, the NCAA Tournament committee obviously felt like Stanford’s body of work still warranted a #1 seed. When asked if it mattered any more this year to have a #1 seed, Stanford downplayed it, though admitted that they do have a chip on their shoulder.
“I mean, I honestly don’t think it really matters if you are a one seed or a two seed,” Stanford senior Hannah Jump said. “I think we were just super excited to see our name up there. But I think we’re gonna come into this tournament with kind of a chip on our shoulder. Especially with the that way we ended things in the Pac-12 tournament. So I think we’ve spent a lot of time this week focusing on ourselves and really figuring out what we need to focus on and I think we’re gonna come in ready to go.”
This past week, Stanford has really benefited from getting some time off and being able to rest after a grueling end to their schedule, including the Pac-12 Tournament. The road trip at Colorado and at Utah in particular seemed to really take its toll on the team. As a result of getting some time off and being able to gather themselves, Stanford will feel recharged and refreshed heading into Friday.
“Yeah, I think it was just a great time to focus on ourselves,” Stanford senior Haley Jones said. “I think the past few weeks we’ve had two games every weekend. Two or more, so just have the time to not having to work on any scout or anything with just looking at ourselves, talking about what our goals are, what we need to do as a team to get there, things we’re good at, things we need to work on, because we need to add to our game. So, I think it was good to just kinda have a week strictly for ourselves.”
“Well, I think you really kinda hit the nail on the head,” VanDerveer added. “Our team has demonstrated that we can play with anyone and I think playing four out of five weekends on the road with the television games that we had on Mondays and Thursdays and the travel issues we had, just really our team hit a wall and having come back, I think our team had a chance. We’re off on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. We had I think three excellent practices Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, we took yesterday off.
“Our team should be really rested now and coming into it, I think that this is a great opportunity for our team and I have a lot of confidence that we just continue to build on the good things we’re doing and 'rest' is not a four letter word. Rest is what our team needed and we got it and now we’re ready.”
One of the things that Stanford really hopes will benefit them is their national championship experience. They won it all in 2021 and reached the Final Four in 2022. Not many teams have that kind of experience and they want to make sure they use it to their advantage.
“I think it’s great having won and then not great having lost, but you learn from every loss that you have, but I mean it’s a new tournament every year and I think we have a target on our backs which is interesting because we also feel like a chip on our shoulder,” Jones admitted. “So, it’s an interesting place to be in, but I think it just as we move through the tournament taking each game one game at a time, the experience that we have is great. In close games we stay tight, we never flip on each other, we’re very cool, calm, collected, when we’re speaking to one another while still having that sense of urgency. So I think just kinda having that core returning and then adding great pieces like we do every year, it sets us up to have a great tournament run.”
Looking ahead to Friday, Stanford just wants to go out there and play their game. They know they have a target on their backs because of who they are, but they don’t want that to distract them from focusing on what they can control.
“I think the most important thing that we can do right now is keep people healthy and really do our drills and do our scrimmages and keep them fresh,” VanDerveer said. “I think that’s the best thing and be very specific about what things we need to do versus each team we’re playing and give them a great plan. We have the experience, we have the leadership, we have the skill, I mean we have great, I think great talent, and just everyone making sure oars are in the water, kinda pulling together and if we do that, we’ll be in great shape.”
Overall, Stanford appears to be sitting in a good spot. The key thing will be for them to learn whatever lessons they can from the losses they’ve had and take advantage of the experience and depth that they have. If they can do that, they’ll be a really tough team to stop.
“Not to take anyone lightly and I don’t think we do, but just really coming into every game really prepared,” Stanford junior Cameron Brink said of the key lessons they’ve learned. “We’re gonna play with a chip on our shoulder and not let anyone bully us. Not let the refs control the game, anything like that. I think we’re just gonna put people at our will and I’m really confident that we’re gonna do that.”
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