Fine at Five

#5

We are cracking the Top 5 now of the top women's basketball teams of the nearly-a-decade (2001-2009).

Jake-LSU
Jenn-Stanford

LSU and Stanford were tight for 4 & 5 and even #3 but in the end, I have Stanford just shy of LSU in the #5 spot. I can see where Jake is coming from putting LSU at 5 but tomorrow I'll review why I put them ahead of Stanford. (hint: they are #4). Let's look at what the Cardinal women did over the nearly-a-decade.

Ranked in Top 13 all eight years, 7 Top 10 finishes, Top 5 for five of those years including the #1 ranking in 2005. What hurts them was their post season play. They fixed that in the last few years but the first half of the decade was Stanford-No Show and that hurts them in my rankings. If you are going to rank the best teams, then it has to be start to finish with the finish line as April, not early March. Don't get me wrong, Stanford is awesome and one of my Top 3 teams that I love to watch. Coach Tara Vanderveer is a master of the game. I consider her the Bobby Fischer of women's basketball. Stanford rocked the Pac-10, winning 9 regular season titles (only team in the Top 10 to do that), but fell short in the NCAA tournament until recent years. The Pac-10 has gotten considerably better since the beginning of this decade and it certainly shows that Stanford is consistent but it's still not as deep as SEC, Big East or ACC.

They were in 2 NCAA Final Fours (2008, 2009) including the 2008 Championship game. They were also in 2 additional NCAA Quarterfinal games. Not bad stats at all. But to me this is staggering and a true testament to the quality of players Stanford produces: Stanford had an All-American player in 8 of the 9 years we are talking about here. The list is: Nicole Powell (2002-2004), Candice Wiggins (2005-2008, Wade Trophy winner 2008) and Jayne Appel (2009). Scary.


Where is Stacey Dales?
The NFL Network snagged her up and offered her a spot on the Sunday morning pre-game show "NFL GameDay". She will be a co-host with Michael Irvin on the four hour kickoff show. You can read the article here. Good luck Stacey! I'll miss you come Tourney time!

Who can forget the hit she took a few years back as a sideline reporter?!

WNBA
Seattle, Detroit, San Antonio, Sacramento and Atlanta were all winners last night. Talk about anything can happen on any given day! Phoenix, who just saw their Western Conference lead cut to 1 game, lost to Detroit 101-99 as Cheryl Ford played her best game of the season (22 points & 11 boards). That moves Detroit into 4th place in the East. Oh yeah, and Detroit did this without Katie Smith (back injury, second game missed). Could my prediction of Phoenix dropping to second and Seattle taking first happen? Anything can happen at this time of the year.

Standings now:
East
Indiana Fever (clinched Eastern Conference Championship)
Atlanta Dream -5.0
Washington Mystics -6.5
Detroit Shock -6.5

Chicago Sky -7.0
Connecticut Sun -7.5
New York Liberty -9.0

West
Phoenix Mercury
Seattle Storm -1.0
Los Angeles Sparks -5.0
San Antonio Silver Stars (big win last night put some distance between them and 5th place) -7.0

Minnesota Lynx -8.0
Sacramento Monarchs -9.5

Tonight's Game
Preview of the WNBA Final:

Phoenix Mercury vs Indiana Fever (7:00 pm, NBA TV)