March 9, 2023
Locked On Women’s Basketball: Stanford, Utah and other Pac-12 teams to watch in the NCAA Tournament
By The Next
Pac-12 beat reporter Matthew Walter recaps what we learned at the tournament where Washington State caught teams by surprise.
The latest episode of the Locked On Women’s Basketball podcast is here. Host Howard Megdal was joined by The Next‘s Matthew Walter, who covered every second of the Pac-12 Tournament and comes filled with insights into the teams headed deeper into March. Who can slow down Utah’s offensive attack? Is Stanford designed for a march to Dallas? What made Washington State so tough in Las Vegas, and can it continue? We answered all this and in this Pac-12 podcast edition of Locked On Women’s Basketball!
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First, let’s quickly recap the tournament for anyone who missed it. As Walter wrote, Washington State won the championship, defeating UCLA 65-61 on Sunday. This was the school’s first-ever women’s sports Pac-12 championship.
Megdal started the episode by asking if Walter predicted the Cougars’ big victory at the Pac-12 Tournament.
“I don’t think I had them winning more than one game and beating Cal,” Walter said. “That is a credit to Kamie Ethridge, and credit to her staff and her players and the job that they did. I talked to them after their second game after they beat Utah and what was really the biggest upset of their tournament run. I said did you expect this and they said, you know, we packed like we could win this whole thing because we kind of felt like we’re the team that no one talks about.”
In the second segment, the two discussed top-seeded Stanford, who fell to UCLA in the semifinals of the Pac-12 Tournament.
“If there’s one thing I never gonna do, it’s doubt Tara VanDerveer,” Walter said. “She’s gonna get her team prepared to play in March to the best level of her ability. And I think, you know, sometimes losing games is almost better for a team than winning games, because you learn from your losses. And Tara talks about it, we have to use this time the next 10 to 12 days when they lost against UCLA on that set on that Friday night, to figure out what kind of team we’re going to be. We have to figure out how we’re going to better put ourselves in a position on offense to score and be a more balanced team. You know, we’re we changed our identity because of the kind of talent that we have this year. But we have to learn how to play that way, especially now that we get in March when the games are tight and teams are going to be high level every single game.”
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