At one point late in the second half of Stanford’s second-round tournament game Monday night against UTEP, Cardinal guard Candice Wiggins’ 42 points matched the output of UTEP’s entire team. She finished the game with a school-record-tying 44 points, not to mention 10 rebounds, 8 assists, 3 steals and 1 block.
Stanford won the game, 88-54, on its home floor to advance to the Sweet 16. And it was a sweet farewell Wiggins gave Cardinal fans in her final game at Maples Pavilion. Her 44 points were the third most scored in NCAA tournament history, behind Lorri Bauman’s 50 in 1982 and Sheryl Swoopes’ 47 when she took Texas Tech to the 1993 Championship.
Not bad for the Pac-10 scoring leader who this season broke Lisa Leslie’s career scoring record yet has often been overshadowed by the other Candace, the one who wears orange, dunks and wins National Championships and is expected to be the WNBA’s No.1 draft pick after this year’s Final Four.
"This is my lasting imprint of my career,” Wiggins said after exiting her home court arm in arm with Coach Tara VanDerveer to the cheers of 5,000 fans. “I think it just summarizes the feeling I have when I play at Maples."
Monday night’s eight tournament games saw about as many other outstanding individual performances:
Sylvia Fowles and Erica White of LSU (2), who dismantled last year’s Cinderellas, the Marist Red Foxes (7), 68-49, in Baton Rouge. Fowles, the 6-6 dominant center who was double-, triple- and quadruple-teamed much of the night, finished with 19 points. Her 13 rebounds gave her 1,527 for her stellar career, breaking the all-time SEC record held by Valerie Still of Kentucky since 1983. White, the 5-3 point guard, spent most of the first half on the bench in foul trouble. She scored all of her 15 points in the second half to break open what had been a close game. She added 4 assists and 4 steals.
Sarah-Jo Lawrence’s buzzer-beating layup to give George Washington (6) a stunning 55-53 win over Cal (3), which had led most of the game. Lawrence scored 13 points, but four of them were pivotal: She tied the game with a driving layup with 12.1 seconds left, then capitalized after a Cal turnover by rebounding an airball by guard Kimberly Beck. The Colonials’ bench erupted as Cal’s jaws dropped and tears fell.
Andrea Riley’s free throw with 0.7 seconds left in OT to lift Oklahoma State (3) over Florida State (11), 72-73. The nail-biter appeared headed to a second OT when Riley, an underrated point guard, dribbled to the top of the key and hit traffic. She tried to force an awkward shot and was fouled as the buzzer sounded. The refs put time back on the clock and Riley went to the line. She missed the first shot but sank the second for her 21st point. She then intercepted FSU’s cross-court pass to seal it.
Kia Vaughn led four Rutgers (2) players in double figures in hard fought 69-58 win over Iowa State (7) in Des Moines. Vaughn racked up a season-high 23 points, 17 of them in the first half including 12 straight. It was her second straight 20-plus point game. Epiphanny Prince scored 17 points, Matee Ajavon had 16 and Essence Carson added 10.
Shavonte Zellous carried her Pittsburgh (6) team past 2005 champ Baylor (3), 67-59, after the other half of the Panthers’ dynamic duo, Marcedes Walker, fouled out with 5:28 left. Walker had contributed 17 points and 9 rebounds, but Zellous did the rest. She hit three free throws with 4:59 left after being fouled behind the arc and Pitt holding a two-point lead. She then outhustled a Baylor player to a loose-ball rebound with 37 seconds left and the Panthers up 61-54. The two put Pitt in its first Sweet 16.
And the best quote of the Tournament came from Texas A&M Coach Gary Blair, who is taking his squad to the school second ever Sweet 16 after shellacking Hartford, 63-39: "There's room for people to jump on this bandwagon at any time. I don't think we have our spring football game for at least a couple weeks. Right now, it's just about women. Isn't that great? ... We might even have a woman president. You never know what's going to happen. We want to go to that next level. We don't want to just get up there and play hard and everybody pats us on the back. We're in this thing to win now."