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The first season in the post-Tara VanDerveer era didn’t go as planned at Stanford. (Eakin Howard/Getty Images)
Eakin Howard via Getty Images
Stanford will be watching the NCAA tournament from home for the first time in decades.
The Cardinal officially did not receive a bid for the women's NCAA tournament on Sunday night after a rough campaign that resulted in a first-round exit from the ACC tournament earlier this month. It marks the first time since 1987 that Stanford has missed the NCAA tournament.
That 36-season streak was the second longest in women’s college basketball. Only Tennessee has been better with 42 straight tournament appearances. UConn has now made it 36 times to match Stanford. Baylor is the next closest team with 21 consecutive appearances.
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While it’s going to be strange not seeing the Cardinal in the tournament this spring, it’s easy to understand why they are missing out. This season was the first without longtime coach Tara VanDerveer, who retired last spring after 38 seasons with the program. She oversaw the entire NCAA tournament run, and turned the Cardinal into a powerhouse in college basketball.
VanDerveer finished with a 1,065-220 career record, which allowed her to retire as the winningest head coach in men’s and women’s Division I college basketball. Longtime UConn coach Geno Auriemma has since broken that record. VanDerveer led the Cardinal to three national titles, most recently in 2021, 14 Final Fours and 26 regular season Pac-12 titles.
The team opted to promote longtime assistant Kate Paye to replace VanDerVeer. While Paye got the team off to a 7-1 start, they lost five of their next six games and failed to beat a ranked opponent all season. Stanford was then knocked out of the opening round of the ACC tournament by Clemson, which dropped it to 16-14 on the season.
While it would’ve taken a significant run at the conference tournament to make it in — ESPN bracketology analyst Charlie Creme had them listed under his “Next Four Out” section at the start of the ACC tournament — the loss ensured that the Cardinal wouldn’t make it in.
So Stanford’s streak is finally over.
Paye should be able to bounce back next season and start her own streak. The Cardinal have a very strong recruiting class coming in, which includes ESPN five-star recruits Hailee Swain, Lara Somfai and Alexandra Eschmeyer. ESPN has them ranked as the third-best recruiting class in the nation, too.
While the first season in the post-VanDerveer era was disappointing, the future is still bright at Stanford. It just will take several decades to rebuild that historic streak.
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