Husky Women's Basketball Team Eyes Final Frontier

It seems only yesterday that Chris Gobrecht brought her style of class and brass to women's basketball at the University of Washington, developing a team and inspiring a following that would involve a part of Seattle not previously interested in athletics.

Gobrecht, 38, is now in her ninth year at Washington. With Don James no longer around, she is the school's most successful coach of a high-profile sport.

But there seems nothing complacent about Gobrecht, who looks more energetic than ever.

In her mind there was stage one, in the 1980s, when she won Pac-10 championships by having her players out-hustle opponents and daring to defend every inch of the court.

"We won the Pac-10 in 1988 with three sophomores on the court," she said, "but the Pac-10 was a baby then. You don't win a championship that way any more."

And Gobrecht hasn't. The past two 17-win seasons she has played younger players and finished in the middle of pack. She had to rebuild, and has.

"We bit the bullet the past two years, and now we're ready to contend again for the Pac-10 championship," she said. "In a way, this is the culmination of eight years of building."

The team of 1990 - Traci Thirdgill, Laurie Merlino, Karen Deden, Jacki Myers and Amy Mickelson - was the best Washington has ever had, winning 28 games, but in the NCAA tournament wasn't good enough.

That team was blown out by Auburn by 26 points.

Gobrecht called it "hitting the wall."

She needed better athletes and a more upbeat offense.

And she needed, frankly, to hope Stanford, which has won two of the last four NCAA titles, would join the NBA.

"That school," she said, "recruits Parade magazine high-school All-Americans across the board. As long as women's basketball is what it is, they will be the team to beat."

But Gobrecht doesn't defer to Stanford, or its coach, Tara Vanderveer.

Right now, in fact, she is battling Stanford for Sealth High star Naomi Mulitauaopele.

"We have an awful lot to offer,ourselves. In many ways our program is more advanced and finely developed than Stanford's," Gobrecht said. "The final hurdle for us is to win an NCAA championship. People would view us in a different way then."

The Huskies might not be that far off, although they still play in the league with Stanford and the West Regionals will be in Palo Alto next spring.

Mostly, the Huskies don't want to forget their last game of last season, losing by six points to Texas Tech in Lubbock, the toughest game the NCAA champions would have.

"At the time," Gobrecht said, "I think I failed to recognize the quality of either one of us. We were both playing at a top level."

A preseason poll of Pac-10 coaches listed Stanford, USC and Washington as the top three teams.

"We've got a chance," she said. "We have no major holes. We have five players who got a ton of experience last year."

They are called the "Foundation Five II."

They are center Rhonda Smith, forwards Laura Gonsalves and Melissa Wuschnig and guards Tara Davis and Katia Foucade. Only Davis is a senior.

And there are others. Michelle Perkins returns from knee surgery. Shannon Kelly has the experience of playing in 29 games last year, and Heidi Hills is making the transition from playing inside to outside.

Gobrecht recruited her first junior-college player, 5-foot-6 point guard Margie Tilbrook, an Australian. She also added four high-school players, including rugged 6-foot-2 Stacey Morrell of Mukilteo.

The team loses two starters from last season, Laura Moore and Erika Hardwick. Especially hard to replace is Moore's outside shooting.

The compensation will come in quickness and athletic ability, more fast breaks, more steals, the kind of game Auburn played in 1990 when Gobrecht realized she needed a new formula for success.

"We would like to run much more, to take advantage of Katia's open-court abilities," she said.

The question mark is Davis, who has been both spectacular and spacey, sometimes in the same game.

"Everyone is pulling for Tara Davis to have a great senior year," Gobrecht said.

Except those folks at Stanford.