COLLEGE BASKETBALL ‘92-93 : NATIONAL WOMEN’S OVERVIEW : Stanford Stands Tall but Not Necessarily All Alone

Sizing up the best of the best in women’s college basketball this season is only slightly more difficult than sizing up the tallest of the tall.

Here’s how it shakes out:

--Stanford went 30-3 last season, won five NCAA playoff games by margins of nine, 12, 20, one and 16 points, won the national championship and returns all five starters.

--Heidi Gillingham, the Tower of Vanderbilt, is listed as 6 feet 10, up from 6-8. Can another women’s dunk be far away? The last one was in 1984.

The choice of Stanford to repeat as the NCAA champion seems like a no-brainer, particularly since another contender for the throne, Tennessee, has been rocked with injuries.

Stanford’s 6-3 senior center, Val Whiting, might be the best player in the country and senior point guard Molly Goodenbour, 5-6, was a sensation at the Final Four at the Sports Arena in April.

Also returning is last year’s Pac-10 freshman of the year, 6-3 Rachel Hemmer.

However, some say the national championship might be determined Dec. 21, when Stanford plays at Tennessee.

For the last three seasons, the Stanford-Tennessee winner has won it all--Stanford in 1990 and ‘92, Tennessee in 1991.

The preseason polls have Tennessee a close second to Stanford, but the Lady Volunteers have been beset with problems, the largest of which is losing senior point guard Jody Adams for the season when she injured a knee in practice three weeks ago.

So Pat Summitt has promoted sophomore Tiffany Woosley to the point guard position. And prized recruit Michelle Johnson, a 6-foot forward from Shelbyville, Tenn., is also out for the season with knee problems.

Peggy Evans, a 6-foot junior All-American candidate, is under suspension for the first five games for a “violation of team rules” late last season.

Tennessee and Stanford could meet twice next month. In addition to the Dec. 21 game, both are in the Dec. 4-6 Wahini Classic in Honolulu.

Summitt’s teams won national championships in 1987, ’89 and ’91. Last season’s coveted freshmen, Dana Johnson (6-2) and Vonda Ward (6-6), will be blended with a freshman standout, high school All-American Latina Davis. Another returnee is Lisa Harrison.

Stanford’s coach, Tara VanDerveer, has turned so-so programs into big-time winners on three occasions. Hired at Idaho in 1978, her team was 17-8 her first year and 25-6 the second, and she was promptly hired by Ohio State. In five seasons in Columbus, her teams were 17-15, 20-7, 23-5, 22-7 and 28-3.

Stanford called. First two years: 13-15 and 14-14. Then: 27-5, 28-3, 32-1, 28-6 and 30-3.

Hello, dynasty.

After her first two seasons, VanDerveer is 143-18 at Stanford, 80-10 in conference play.

At 39, she has 322 victories. Perspective: John Wooden didn’t reach 322 victories until his 17th year in coaching, when he was 55. VanDerveer has done it in 14.

USC Coach Marianne Stanley says that Stanford might discover it has been too long in the spotlight. For all its talent, she says Stanford won’t have an easy time on the Pac-10 trips.

“They’re really good, but it also wouldn’t shock me if they lost four or five times,” she said.

Stanford’s is almost a national basketball team. The Cardinal roster shows players from 10 states, only two from California.

On the second tier, most preseason polls are showing Maryland, Virginia, Western Kentucky, Ohio State, Iowa, USC, Arizona State and Vanderbilt, which brings us back to Gillingham.

Gillingham says she is still 6-8, her height when she was recruited out of Texas in 1990. Rival schools claim she is 6-9.

But standing against a measuring tape painted on a locker-room wall late last season, she was exactly 6-10, in shoes. Coach Jim Foster asked her if they could start listing her as 6-10.

No problem, Gillingham said.

Whatever, the tallest female player in the country is quite a player.

She is already Vanderbilt’s all-time leader in blocked shots with 218 in two seasons. In three games last season, she blocked eight or more shots. She also shot 58% from the floor, averaged 10 points and seven rebounds.

Gillingham has a 6-7 little sister, Gwendolyn, who plays for North Carolina. An older brother, Phil, is 6-6. Her mother is 5-8 and her father 6-6.

“When I was growing up, I was mortified at first at being taller than my dad, but now I really enjoy being tall,” Gillingham said.

She also said she has been practicing her dunk shot in practice and hopes to jam one this season.

The last American woman to dunk was 6-7 Georgeann Wells of West Virginia, who made that shot in a game against the University of Charleston on Dec. 21, 1984. Wells could also dunk, in practice, with the men’s basketball, which is one inch in diameter bigger than the women’s basketball.

USC is identified as a top-10 team by several preseason polls and was picked to finish second in the Pac-10 by its coaches. Stanley is almost jubilant over the early play of her new point guard, Nicole McCrimmon, a no-look passing specialist from New York and Hobbs, N.M.

Arizona State, under Maura McHugh, was 20-9 last year after being picked by nearly everyone to finish last. Instead, they finished fourth and made the NCAA tournament.

McHugh started five juniors and all return. The most productive were Ryneldi Becenti, Lisa Salsman and Jovonne Smith.

Virginia’s Cavaliers lost their renowned backcourt, Dawn Staley and Tammi Reiss, but still has the 6-5 Burge twins, Heidi and Heather. All-American Staley’s replacement is Kris Somogyi, a 5-4 freshman who broke her father’s New Jersey high school career scoring record.