In win, Stanford shows it has star and much more

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Chiney Ogwumike was insisting on the impossible.

"I want to be an afterthought," Stanford's alpha player said after scoring 29 points and pulling down 15 rebounds against Penn State.

Tara VanDerveer looked at her star senior as though Ogwumike might have hit her head a little too hard when she got undercut late in the game.

"I'm not sure where that ever came from," VanDerveer said. "I've never said that. Chiney is a star."

Ogwumike was a superstar on Sunday afternoon in the regional semifinal at Maples Pavilion, leading her team to an 82-57 win over Penn State and a date in the Elite Eight on Tuesday night. The Cardinal will play North Carolina, which upset top seed South Carolina.

But, in a happy development for Stanford, other Cardinal players played well, too. Amber Orrange had one of her best games, with 18 points. Freshman Lili Thompson played smothering defense on Penn State's best player, Maggie Lucas, holding her to six points for the first time - as VanDerveer joked - "since third grade." Mikaela Ruef grabbed 13 rebounds, had 11 points and got knocked around by Penn State's big post players. Bonnie Samuelson made two key three-pointers.

"Chiney needs other people to make plays so that she doesn't feel like she has to do it all," VanDerveer said. "And that happened today."

Chiney Ogwumike, who had 29 points, celebrates with her teammates after Stanford's victory. Chiney Ogwumike, who had 29 points, celebrates with her teammates after Stanford's victory. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close In win, Stanford shows it has star and much more 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

During the national anthem, Ogwumike stood with her hands on her hips, shifting back and forth like a sprinter in the blocks.

"She gets really antsy," said her big sister, Nneka, who was in the stands, along with Jayne Appel, Kayla Pedersen and other former Stanford players. "She's a senior. She's fighting for her team. She's focused."

On Sunday, Stanford shed its image as Chiney and the four dwarfs. The Cardinal showed how dangerous they can be when other players contribute. It was Stanford's most complete game in a while, helping to erase the bad memory of the Pac-12 tournament, where a second-round loss to USC led to the Cardinal getting dropped to a No. 2 seed.

"We stunk it up and got sent home," VanDerveer said. "That got everyone's attention."

And now Stanford is one game away from the Final Four, which is pretty amazing. Stanford has a long glorious history of trips to the Final Four, 11 in total. And if this team makes it No. 12, it may be the most surprising group of all.

Because, while the Cardinal got multiple contributions Sunday, they still are a team centered on one key player. And Tuesday's game will have the feeling of a farewell party. Not just a farewell to Ogwumike, but to an era of greatness. While Thompson and Orrange are nice players, there's no budding superstar on the team. There may be one in the future, but she's not here yet. So the chain of Candice Wiggins to Appel to Pedersen to Nneka Ogwumike to Chiney Ogwumike will be broken.

Who knows when Stanford will get this close to a Final Four again?

It's unlikely that Stanford will soon replicate the kind of energetic atmosphere that it is enjoying this week at Maples.

On Sunday, Maples was packed to the rafters. The crowd was fully engaged and deafening. It was a great women's basketball scene and an antidote to all those empty echoing buildings in the first round.

But next year the NCAA is going back to neutral sites in the regional round.

"I'm glad we're going back to neutral sites," said Penn State coach Coquese Washington. "I think it's extremely difficult task to ask."

At one point, when Penn State trailed by about 20, its band chanted, "Neutral sites, neutral sites." Of course, Penn State played its first two rounds at home in University Park.

For those of us who have seen exciting regional games get swallowed up in the emptiness of a 20,000-seat arena, the move back to neutral sites is a concern. The NCAA needs to pick carefully to ensure a fan base can travel (example: Sacramento was a smart place to play in 2010, allowing Stanford fans to travel). And the NCAA hasn't been smart about trying to cater to regional women's basketball fan bases, as we saw when it sent Stanford to Iowa instead of Los Angeles or Seattle.

But the outcome of Sunday's game was lopsided enough not to have been determined by location.

"I think we earned the right to play at home," Ogwumike said. "That started in the first and second round in Iowa. Today, the crowd was great, the energy was great. We love Nerd Nation, but the people in the stands can't make the plays."

The people on the court made the plays and Sunday all of them contributed. But the biggest plays came from the player who will never be an "afterthought." Ogwumike gets one more game on her homecourt.