Women's Hoops Guru

By Mel Greenberg

Glance through past Stanford women's basketball media guides and there will be references to the "Decade of Dominance" in which the Cardinal claimed two NCAA titles in the 1990s and were frequent participants at the Women's Final Four.

It was a decade with great players led by coach Tara VanDerveer who built herself a Hall of Fame reputation, highlighted by her role in leading the United States to the 1996 Olympic gold medal at the Atlanta games.

That was then, this is now.

If the 1990s were a decade of dominance, although Stanford has enjoyed high rankings in the 21st century, Sunday's controversial finish producing a 60-58 victory over then No. 3 Rutgers in Piscataway, N.J., ended a decade of drought in terms of quality road wins outside the Pac-10.

You could look it up.

The last time Stanford beat a Top 5 team on the road occurred twice against No. 5s in the 1997-98 ill-fated season when the Cardinal beat the Theresa Grentz-coached No. 5 Illinois, 91-78, on Dec. 14 in Champaign and then later beat the Marsha Sharp-coached No. 5 Texas Tech squad on Jan. 31 in Lubbock.

Unfortunately, Stanford is best known for that season in way the Cardinal concluded.

ACL injuries a few days apart to starters Vanessa Nygaard and Kristin Folk prior to the first round of the NCAA tournament resulted in the all-time upset when No. 16 seed Harvard shocked the No. 1 seeded Cardinal at home.

Stanford went on to remain as one of the top programs in the country but in terms of big-game performances, the Cardinal usually have come up short. Most of the non-conference setbacks have been to Tennessee.

So now we have ourselves quite the date to look forward to. That would be Nov. 22 down in the Caribbean when Stanford and No. 2 Connecticut will hook up in the Paradise Jam.

And you all thought the world was going to end without a Tennessee-Connecticut game to focus on during the regular season.

Blowing the Whistle on Those Who Blow the Whistle

A full-scale debate has broken out over the merits of assessing Rutgers sophomore Epiphanny Prince the foul with 0.10 seconds left that led to Stanford's triumph.

Coaches over the years have said, ``Never put the game in the hands of the officials," so in that regard Rutgers fell short in enough areas, including the lopsided rebounding total, to get into harm's way.

The law and order side of the debate is screaming a foul is a foul, whenever it occurs.

But if an argument is being made in support of allowing the game to be decided in overtime --- and there certainly was no guarantee that Rutgers could prevail -- some of it comes from conversations with many officials over the years who had observed similar situations and have said as much.

Certainly, the old "No Harm, No Foul," philosophy seemed to be in play.

Interestingly, there was little defense of officials in a similar situation a few years ago when Tennessee slipped by Baylor in the NCAA tournament on a controversial late call.

Anyhow, there is some collateral damage for the moment to Rutgers' sheen.

The Scarlet Knights slipped from No. 3 to No. 6 in Monday's first weekly AP poll of the season. The dip really isn't that much and the ranking should be perceived as to what happens to performers who slip in figure skating competition.

Furthermore, coach C. Vivian Stringer's group will be seeing each team ranked ahead of them, so the ladder is in place to climb back.

The downside, however, is that selling Rutgers as a No. 3 or higher outfit in pursuit of a national title, especially in light of last year's run to the championship game, is much easier on newsroom decision-makers than if the Scarlet Knights are perceived as just another team in the second-tier of the top 10 that is in the hunt.

Temple Shines in Season Opener

After seeing Temple's performance Monday night in the Owls' season and home opener against Central Michigan at the Liacouras Center, one wonders what the Atlantic Ten coaches were thinking in giving coach Dawn Staley's squad a No. 4 preseason pick.

Granted, Central Michigan wasn't even a quality sparring partner as the 83-45 result illustrates, but the mix of veterans and newcomers performed in such a manner as to make this weekend's visit to No. 8 Georgia, Friday, and Georgia Tech on Sunday quite intriguing.

Temple became known as a rebounding team by late last season and the 51-21 advantage -- not that the opponent had much of a post presence -- showed that reputation is still intact.

Lady Comfort, who has become the new go-to at center, had 16 points and eight rebounds, while senior classmate Ashley Morris scored 15 points and dealt eight assists.

Junior College transfer Shanae Cotton impressed with nine points and 12 rebounds to fortify Comfort in the post, while freshman Lindsay Kimmel showed herself as a deep threat, making 4-of-10 treys and finishing with 14 points.

Poll Trivia

Wisconsin's ranking enabled coach Lisa Stone to join the doubles club after having made an AP appearance at her previous stop at Drake.

Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma has now moved into ninth-place tie with his former Virginia boss Debbie Ryan with 291 appearances each. The Cavaliers are not ranked this week.

On the active list, the two are deadlocked in sixth place.

Stanford's VanDerveer is only four rankings away from catching former Penn State coach Rene Portland on the all-time list at 336.

Rutgers has moved past Long Beach to eighth place on the all-time list of Top 10 appearances at 167.

Connecticut has now made its 100th Top 5 appearance this decade, trailing Duke (110) annd Tennessee (130). The Huskies have also reached 200 all-time Top 5 appearances, also in third place behind Tennessee (393) and Louisiana Tech (279).

This is the 538th poll and Tennessee has missed only 14 appearances all-time.

-- Mel