On Brink, Steding, Taylor Jones and the Portland Regional …

Lake Oswego’s Katy Steding has landed at her college alma mater, Stanford, through a long coaching career

Updated 4/2/2024 2:20 AM

Lots of stuff from the first two days of the Portland Regional of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament at Moda Center …

• It all ended in despair for Cameron Brink, the much-celebrated homecoming for Stanford’s All-American center in her final season.

Brink, who played her high school ball at first Southridge, then Mountainside, knew she was playing for the final time as a collegian in her hometown. She didn’t know, however, it would be her final appearance in a Stanford uniform.

North Carolina State took care of that on Friday, rallying from a 10-point halftime deficit and outscoring Stanford 50-30 in the second half en route to a 77-67 Regional semifinal victory. It was a strange final game for the 6-4 senior, who fouled out with 8:10 remaining. Brink missed six of her first seven shots from the field and finished with 13 points, nine rebounds and seven blocked shots in just 24 minutes of play. All in a loss as the No. 2 seed Cardinal finished the season 30-6 in couldn’t-be-more-disappointed fashion.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this for Brink. It should have been one more trip to the Final Four. Maybe a second national championship tacked on to the one she helped the Cardinal achieve as a freshman in 2020-21.

Afterward, as Brink met with the media for the last time in her college career, she was glum and seemingly shellshocked.

“I’m just happy to have had such an amazing career (at Stanford), to be coached by Tara (Vanderveer), to play with such amazing girls,” she said. “I’m sad, but it’s bittersweet.”

This is a special player, one of the best ever to come out of the Portland area.

The 6-4 Brink is projected as the No. 2 pick in the April 15 WNBA draft. She is one of four finalists for Naismith Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year awards. A three-time All-American, Brink had her best individual season as a senior, winning the Pac-12 Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year awards. Heading into Friday’s game, she led the nation in blocked shots per game (3.6), was third in rebounds (11.9) and was averaging 17.5 points.

This weekend was a final chance to play in front of her family and friends in her home state. And it’s the first time she has ever played at Moda Center. The Brinks and the Currys — yes, that NBA family of NBA you know about — are close.

“I’ve watched my godbrothers Steph and Seth play here a lot,” Cameron said Thursday, “but I’ve never played here before. It’s exciting.”

Her family spoiled her in her first few days of the visit home. There was a dinner at Jake’s Crawfish, another at El Gaucho Steakhouse.

“Last night I had my grandma’s pot roast,” she said, smiling, “so I’m very happy.”

Unfortunately for her, and for the Cardinal, her feelings were much different a night later.

• Brink and 6-3 junior Kiki Iriafen formed what was likely the best 1-2 inside punch in the country this season. Iriafen, who averaged 19.2 points and 11.1 rebounds, exploded for 42 points, 16 rebounds and three blocks in Stanford’s 87-81 double-overtime second-round win over Iowa State.

“Hello, national stage,” Stanford assistant coach Katy Steding said.

On Friday night, Iriafen ended her season with a 26-point, 10-rebound performance in just 23 minutes against the Wolfpack.

Vanderveer said Brink and Iriafen “have a really special bond.”

“They are sisters from a different mother,” the veteran Stanford coach said. “They encourage each other; they support each other. They are really close. This year, Cam has really helped Kiki, and Kiki has really helped Cam. They have been each other’s best support on and off the court.”

Both players are very athletic. Iriafen is the better all-around offensive player and the equal to Brink in clearing the glass. Brink, however, has a distinct advantage on the defensive end. She finished her career as Stanford’s record-holder (424), one shy of the Pac-12 record held by Oregon State’s Ruth Hamblin.

• Is Brink the best “big” in Stanford history? There is plenty of competition with the likes of past grads Chiney and Nnemkadi Ogwumike, Jayne Appel, Val Whiting and Kayla Pedersen.

“Our program has had great post players,” said Vanderveer, who has been at the Stanford helm for 39 years. “Cam and Kiki are two of the best. They score. They rebound. They defend.”

Statistically, Brink belongs. She ranks fifth at Stanford in career rebounds (1,223) and 10th in career scoring (1,892). And there are the blocked shots.

“Cam is in the top echelon, for sure,” Steding said. “Kiki is special already, too. Cam is really something. She is in that top group of multi-year All-American post players.

”But it’s like who is better, Jordan or LeBron? Comparing people from even recent eras is difficult. Cam is so gifted athletically, so versatile. But when you talk about Chiney and Neka and Nicole Powell and Kristin Folkl and Trisha Stevens … all the bigs at Stanford have been special in their own right.”

• Stanford offered Brink a scholarship the summer after her eighth-grade year. Assistant coach Amy Tucker saw her play at the school’s youth camp.

“Cam thought she was being offered to come back to camp again,” Vanderveer said with a smile. “But (Tucker) was offering a scholarship.”

“It was a dream to be offered so soon,” Brink said. “It set my sights clearly. I needed to focus on school. It’s hard to get in (to Stanford), even if you’re a student-athlete.”

• Now, in the blink of an eye, her college career is over. But her pro career is about to begin.

“Cam is scratching the surface of how good she can be,” Vanderveer said. “As she goes forward playing more (on the) perimeter, becoming a more consistent shooter and a perimeter defender, the absolute sky is the limit. Cam has an incredible future. It has been fun to be part of her journey.”

• Steding has quite a basketball pedigree, too. I remember covering Katy and Annan Wilson play for Coach Gary Lavender and Lake Oswego High in the mid-1980s. Their highest finish at the State 3A meet was third.

“We always had to play St. Mary’s Academy,” Katy said with a laugh.

The Blues were led in those years by Karon Howell, who would land at Southern Cal. Steding starred at Stanford along with Trisha Stevens out of Philomath. Wilson played at Colorado.

“They still call her ‘Spud’ in Boulder,” Steding said. “She was just like Spud Webb, except she couldn’t dunk.”

Steding’s illustrious career included seven seasons in the American Basketball League and fledgling WNBA, including a stint with the Portland Power. She ended her pro career in 2002 with the Seattle Storm and also played pro ball in Japan and Spain. In between was her unforgettable time as a member of the 1996 U.S. team that won gold at the Atlanta Olympics, with Vanderveer as the head coach and led by Lisa Leslie, Sheryl Swoopes, Teresa Edwards and Katrina McClain.

Katy then coached seven years at Portland’s Warner Pacific.

“I loved it there,” she said. “The kids were amazing. I’m still in touch with many of them.”

Steding’s career has taken her many places. She served a season as an assistant for the WNBA Atlanta Dream. For four years, she was head coach at Boston University. She had assistant jobs at Columbia, USF and Cal before heading to The Farm to serve on Vanderveer’s coaching staff in 2020. “It’s amazing the opportunities that come your way,” Steding said “if you stick it out.”

Those opportunities Included a trip back to Portland, where her mother and stepfather and two sisters live. Her husband, John Jeub, played football at Lewis & Clark.

“When I heard the Regional was in Portland,” Katy said, “I was like, ‘We have to get there.’ ”

Steding, now 56, played for a very young Tara. They won a national championship together in 1990, Tara’s first, during Katy’s senior year.

“Katy was the first player that we signed at Stanford,” Vanderveer said. “She set a record for most 3-pointers in a Final Four. It was broken last year by Caitlin Clark.

“She is a very intelligent woman. I call her ‘The Grinder.’ She works really hard. She is also tremendously loyal — someone I’ve known for almost 40 years. We work well together. I love having her on our staff.”

Someday the 70-year-old Vanderveer — who has a record 1,216 wins and only 271 losses in 46 seasons as a college head coach — will retire. Long-time assistant coach Kate Paye is said to be the heir apparent. The Cardinal could do a lot worse than hiring Steding, who has more than what it takes to keep the Stanford machine rolling.

• The Portland Regional was also a homecoming of sorts for three players who played collegiately in the state — Taylor Jones and Kennedy Brown at Oregon State and Taylor Bigby at Oregon. Jones and Brown are now starting at Texas and Duke, respectively, while Bigby has been a part-time starter and rotation player at Southern Cal.

Jones, a 6-4 post who started for 2 1/2 seasons at OSU, came off the bench for Texas last season but has been a starter for the Longhorns this season. She sat out Friday’s 69-47 win over Gonzaga under concussion protocol. It was nothing new for Jones through an injury-plagued college career.

“I’ve had double hip surgery and double shoulder surgery, and I’ve re-torn two of those,” Jones said Thursday. “If I had to go under right now, I could get something fixed.”

Jones missed much of the preseason and four games in December with a concussion and a hip injury. She has averaged 12.4 points and 6.4 rebounds in just 20.5 minutes a game while shooting .600 from the field in 32 games.

“This is the most games I’ve played in a season in my college career,” she said. “Overall, I’ve been pretty healthy. Last summer was the first offseason I haven’t had a surgery to deal with. I was able to have a full summer of rehab.”

“I’ve always said if we could get her healthy, she could be pretty good for us,” Texas coach Vic Schaefer said. “When she has been healthy, she has been pretty good for us. She has been up and down as far as numbers, but she is making a big impact on our team.”

After the 2021-22 season, four of Oregon State’s top seven scorers transferred, including Jones, Brown, Taya Corosdale (Duke) and Greta Kampschroeder (Michigan). Jones is a native of Forney, Texas, in suburban Dallas, three hours from Austin. Schaefer had recruited her in high school while coaching at Mississippi State.

“I didn’t want to go to Mississippi,” Jones said, “but I really liked him. The relationship was already there.”

Taylor’s mother Deanna — who died of cancer in 2019 — wanted her to go to Texas, she said.

“It had a lot to do with it was closer to home than Oregon State,” Taylor said. “She loved Texas. A lot of people on her side of the family are UT fans.”

Her father, Keith, is a Texas A&M alum.

“Her daddy is an Aggie,” Schaefer said. “It’s been tough for him to put that Texas orange on. I went to that school, too. I told him, ‘Trust me, brother, it ain’t that hard.’ ”

After missing all but nine games of the 2021-22 campaign due to shoulder surgery, Jones decided to transfer. I asked her why.

“Umm … I just don’t think it was a fit anymore,” she said. “I think … yeah, that’s all I’m going to say.”

Once she decided on a transfer, the move to Austin seemed natural, she said.

“Texas is a great university,” Jones said. “It came down to (Schaefer) being a great coach and looking at what he has done for players at my position and he runs his team very professionally. It’s aligned with everything I believe. To get an undergrad and Masters degree at UT is a great accomplishment. The cherry on top was being closer to home. Texas checked all the boxes on my list.”

Jones said she will return and play a final season at Texas — her sixth in the college ranks — in 2024-25.

• Kennedy Brown is in her second season at Duke after two years as a starter center at OSU. The 6-6 native of Derby, Kan., has been a two-year starter for the Blue Devils, too, averaging 8.3 points and 5.5 rebounds in 24.3 minutes a game as a senior this season.

Brown had a rough go of it Saturday night in Duke’s 53-45 loss to UConn. She grabbed 10 rebounds but scored only four points on 2-for-10 shooting in 27 minutes.

Taylor Bigby, the ex-Duck, played six scoreless minutes off the bench for Southern Cal in its 74-70 win over Baylor Friday.

• With the Pac-12 dissolving after this season, the best women’s basketball conference in the nation goes down with it. Stanford is off to the ACC. USC and UCLA will be in the Big Ten. Oregon State heads to the WCC. But the coaches will always have a bond.

Before the postseason began, Vanderveer sent a group text to the seven other participating Pac-12 coaches. Including Vanderveer, four Pac-12 coaches took teams to the Sweet Sixteen.

“Whenever we go into the tournament, I try to text all the coaches,” she said. “We had so many teams in the tournaments this year, I just said, ‘What the heck? I’m going to do one big one.’ ”

The text read in part, “As we end our Pac-12 family, as we go our separate ways, I want to wish everyone best of luck. We’ve had a great and special thing.”

“We’ve been a close sorority/fraternity,” she said. “I feel like I can call any of the coaches and talk to them. We have a really close group. It is incredibly sad to see the end of such a great conference that has the most teams in the Sweet Sixteen.

“It’s not just that our teams are successful. We have worked together to make the Pac-12 successful. The coaches and administrators have worked together. We represent great universities. It was a, ‘Best wishes, and remember how special it has been.’ ”

In New York for the Albany Regional, Oregon State coach Scott Rueck addressed the subject, saying there has always been esprit de corps among Pac-12 women’s basketball coaches, “and Tara set the tone for that.”

Rueck said his first week on the job at Oregon State, in July 2010, fresh from Division III George Fox, he was at a camp in Chicago when he met Vanderveer.

“I was recruiting, not knowing what I was doing, not even having an assistant coach yet,” Rueck said; “I just felt like I should be there. I didn’t know Tara from anyone. I just knew her as this legend at Stanford, and I was a D-III guy up the road. She came up and welcomed me. And that’s what she does for everyone. She makes you feel like you’re a part of the group, that we’re all in this together, fighting together from the West Coast.

“Because of that, we have always supported each other, and there has been a very healthy respect amongst us. There has been so much consistency through the conference. That is what has made it so good. We have kept coaches. We have excellent coaches. They recruit to who they are … 12 cultures that are tight and … so many of us have won at a high level.”

Rueck said he believes that type of camaraderie will continue, even as the schools disperse. I’m not so sure. What I’d like to see, however, as the ACC seems to move toward implosion, is Stanford and California coming back and joining with Oregon State and Washington in reformation of the Pac-12. Maybe that’s a pipe dream. We’ll see.

And a few notes:

• Iowa’s Caitlin Clark is in the Albany Regional, but many of the top players in the country have been in Portland this weekend. Three of the five AP first-team All-Americans are here — Brink, Connecticut’s Paige Bueckers and Southern Cal’s JuJu Watkins.

It was interesting to watch all three play. Brink suffered through a frustrating, foul-plagued finale to her college career. Bueckers fared better, scoring 24 points in leading UConn past Duke 52-45 Saturday night in a defensive-minded contest. The 5-11 junior is slick in much the same way as Clark, a shooter and scorer also capable of distributing.

Watkins had a terrible shooting game but still scored 30 points in USC’s 74-70 win over Baylor on Saturday. The 6-2 National Freshman of the Year finished 8 for 28 from the field but buried 12 of 13 free throws — seven in a row over the game’s final 3:13.

JuJu is a volume shooter. She has burped up 738 shots in 33 games, an average of more than 22 attempts per contest. Against Baylor, it took her 34 seconds to score her first basket. She took another 22 seconds to miss her first shot. She, too, can create for others, but she has a scorer’s mentality and the green light from Coach Lindsay Gottlieb.

• It was interesting to hear what UConn coach Geno Auriemma said on the subject of the nation’s top player. A week ago after a second-round win over Syracuse, he declared about Bueckers, “We have the best player in America. … the whole stat sheet says that she is. And everybody who watched knows it, and we’re fortunate.”

Auriemma defended his statement during Friday’s press conference at Moda when a reporter suggested many consider Iowa’s Clark as the nation’s premier talent.

“I’ll bet if you ask USC, they wouldn’t tell you Caitlin Clark is the best player,” said Auriemma, who has accumulated 1,211 wins and claimed 11 national championships in his 39 years coaching the Huskies. “If you asked LSU, they wouldn’t tell you. If you asked Texas, they wouldn’t tell you. Every coach thinks the player who is on their team is the best player.

“Listen, I’ve coached the best player in the country a lot more than anyone else coaching in this tournament. It’s OK for somebody else to say their player is. She has done more for our team than anybody else could have done for our team. I wouldn’t trade her for anybody else.”

USC’s Watkins, who averages 26.9 points and 7.3 rebounds, is also in the conversation. Her handle and change of direction on the fly are top-drawer.

“She is really, really talented,” Baylor coach Nicki Collen said. “When JuJu is in transition, that’s the most challenging space. When she has space to operate, she is such a rhythm player — very similar to (Texas freshman) Maddie Booker.

“When she gets in her spots, she is dangerous because of her size. Whether it’s off the jab or off the bounce, she is really really good in isolation. She probably plays the highest volumes of isolations of anybody in the country and does it pretty successfully.”

• USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb has benefitted greatly from the Ivy League rule that doesn’t allow a graduate year for players. Three players transferred to USC from Ivy schools before this season — Kaitlyn Davis (Columbia), McKenzie Forbes (Harvard) and Kayla Padilla (Penn). All three are starters.

“I think that’s the best rule in the history of rules,” quipped Gottlieb, who also played at an Ivy school, Brown.

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