Starbird, Stanford Ground USC

Kate Starbird and Tina Thompson, opponents now but just maybe teammates at the 2000 Olympics, scored 65 points between them Sunday, with Stanford emerging with a 77-76 victory when Thompson missed the game’s last clean shot, with less than four seconds to go.

Starbird had 40 points in a game she later said was her career game at Stanford. Thompson had 25 in a contest that USC led with 25 seconds left.

The 6-foot-3 Thompson had the last chance to prevent Stanford (16-1, 4-0) from gaining its 31st consecutive Pac-10 victory, before a turnaway crowd of 1,052 at Lyon Center.

After Michelle Campbell had given USC (9-4, 3-1) a 76-75 lead with 25 seconds left on a great assist by Kristin Clark, Stanford’s Charmin Smith put the Cardinal back on top with a drive with 11 seconds to go.

USC called a timeout with 5.28 seconds left, and inbounded in front of its bench. Thompson took the ball to her left, into the lane, and got off a left-handed half-hook shot six feet from the basket.

The ball bounced softly once, on the front of the rim, then came off. USC’s Jody Parriott rebounded, went up, but her shot was knocked away with less than a second remaining.

Stanford may have survived the toughest challenge to another unbeaten conference record. Afterward, Stanford Coach Tara VanDerveer knocked the basketball polls, not for her team’s No. 3 ranking, but for ignoring USC and other Pac-10 teams.

“I’m tired of the national polls ignoring the rest of the western teams,” she said.

“I think the game SC played today showed the rest of the country how tough our conference is. You can’t tell me there are 25 teams better than SC and Arizona (12-2, 2-1).”

As for Starbird, the 6-2 senior who was five for eight on three-point shots that soared over USC’s zone, VanDerveer said she told her team afterward to remember what it had just seen. For the game--she played all 40 minutes--she was 15 for 20 from the floor and five for six from the line.

“I told them that was why Kate is an All-American,” she said of Starbird, who had 44 against USC last year.

“She even showed me something today . . . she made huge plays, all game long.”

During one mid-game stretch, she scored 30 of Stanford’s 38 points.

“It just felt like every shot was going in,” Starbird said. “Offensively, it was the best game I’ve ever played.”

A disappointed USC Coach Fred Williams said his team had served notice to the rest of the conference.

“I think we showed everyone with this game that we’re a 40-minute ball club, that we’ll play everyone this hard.”

When told of VanDerveer’s remark about his team being unranked, he said:

“I second the motion.”