Vince Grippi: Gonzaga-Stanford has become one of West Coasts’ best women’s basketball rivalries

Women’s college basketball is littered with great nonconference rivalries.

Connecticut-Tennessee. Iowa-Iowa State. Heck, whomever South Carolina plays more than once.

On the West Coast, though, there aren’t many that garner attention. At least not nationally. Maybe it’s about time that changed. Maybe it’s time, maybe even past time, to put Stanford and Gonzaga in that category.

Though there has been one caveat.

“There is no rivalry until you get somebody,” is how Gonzaga coach Lisa Fortier put it Sunday afternoon.

Right after her 8-2 Bulldogs supplied that element – again – with a dominant 96-78 victory before a sold-out McCarthey Athletic Center crowd, one that played a loud part in a 19-7 third-quarter run that broke open the game.

Another part? Stanford’s best player, a nauseous Cameron Brink, sitting at the end of the bench, towel around her neck, warmup shirt on, the final 26 minutes.

Would her presence on the floor have made a difference? Considering Brink is a first-team All-American, one of the best defenders in nation and averaging 19.6 points in less than 23 minutes a game, sure.

But no one asks how, right? A healthy Brink, who showed some frustration with the officiating, her teammates and the physical play before she sat, would have impacted the margin, though not the outcome.

“Obviously she’s a good player and draws a lot of fouls,” said Maud Huijbens, the Zags’ 6-foot-3 junior post. “She can create some trouble on the floor, but if she had played, we were so connected I don’t think that would have changed (the result) a whole lot.”

Now that’s a good rivalry quote. Isn’t that what such series are about? That and their propensity to bring out the best in players.

Like Huijibens, who had her best game in a Zag uniform with 15 points on seven shots – without a miss. Or like Brynna Maxwell, who shook off an early -season slump to score her Gonzaga-career high 27 points, with only six misses on 16 shots. Or Yvonne Ejim, the Zags’ acknowledged star who starred again, with 25 points and 12 rebounds against the Cardinal’s stable of tall, athletic, strong inside players. Brink or no Brink.

So how did these two schools, one a blue blood with multiple national titles and one of, if not the most-respected coach in the women’s game, develop a rivalry? And keep it going through a pandemic and beyond, including the future?

“There’s just a lot of respect,” said Fortier, who was an assistant when the series began in 2009. “I know I feel it on our side. A lot of respect for them wanting to do that. People don’t want to come up here, not the good teams. The bad teams don’t want to come and play us either, to be honest.”

Stanford isn’t the latter. They came in 9-0. Ranked third in the country. Featuring Brink (who had 10 points in a dozen minutes), veteran wing Hannah Jump (13) and junior post Kiki Iriafen (10 and seven boards), whose presence inside without Brink drew eight fouls.

And yet, for the second time in their last three visits, the Cardinal leave with a loss. It snapped their four-game streak in the series and gave GU three wins in the last eight meetings.

“This is the best team we’ve played so far,” Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer said after emerging from a quiet locker room, “in a very tough environment.”

Considering VanDerveer’s team already owns wins over then-ninth-ranked Indiana and No. 13 Florida State, that’s respect. So is playing Gonzaga pretty much every year – including twice one year during the pandemic.

“That means something,” Fortier said of the Hall of Fame coach’s comment. “She knows what she’s talking about. She’s not just someone who is a casual fan. She knows everything that anyone could ever want to know about basketball.”

And now Fortier might be able to get the most important people around the program to feel the same way.

“Hopefully, it’ll help us believe in ourselves,” she said, channeling her inner Ted Lasso.

Fortier shared that, on Saturday, the Bulldogs had one of their “positive growth meetings” and talked about things they were struggling with.

Confidence was mentioned. A lot. How they play better when they feel it.

“Hopefully they see today, as the collective group, that we should be confident,” Fortier said.

Why not? After all, they just posted an 18-point win in the West Coast’s best nonconference rivalry.