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TAMPA, Fla. -- Candice survived. Candace did, too -- but barely.
Stanford's Candice Wiggins' career was supposed to end Sunday night in a national semifinal against No. 1 ranked Connecticut. That's what all the experts concluded since the Huskies came to Tampa as the heavy chalk.
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| A bum shoulder might have affected Candace Parker's shooting touch, but not her desire. (Getty Images) |
One problem, Wiggins wasn't buying it.
"I think we were probably slept on a little bit," Wiggins said after Stanford upset UConn 82-73. "A lot of people didn't have us coming to the Final Four in the first place. I think (with us) being on the West Coast we haven't been in the Final Four in awhile and we understand that maybe our names aren't as big.
"But that just ... that feeds us, and we have a lot of motivation behind that."
Wiggins said it wasn't surprising no one gave the Cardinal a chance. She remembers the first meeting this season with the Huskies. "We got killed by Connecticut back in November, just absolutely killed," Wiggins said.
Sunday night, though, UConn was UCouldn't. It couldn't stop Wiggins, who had 25 points, 13 rebounds and five assists.
Wiggins was born on Valentine's Day in 1987, but she knows all too well about heartbreak.
Her father, Alan Wiggins, a former Major League Baseball player who abused drugs, died of complications from AIDS at 32. The last time Candice saw her father alive was on a hospital room visit on Christmas Eve in 1990.
He died two weeks later, just before Candice's fourth birthday in 1991.
A year later, Stanford reached the NCAA final -- the last time it played in the championship until now.
Now it's Wiggins' time.
