SAN ANTONIO (AP) - Tara VanDerveer hugged each of her Stanford players as they climbed the ladder to cut down a piece of the net.
It took 29 years, but VanDerveer and the Cardinal are NCAA women's basketball champions again.
Haley Jones scored 17 points and Stanford beat Arizona 54-53, giving the Cardinal and its Hall of Fame coach their first national championship since 1992 on Sunday night.
"Getting through all the things we got through, we're excited to win the COVID championship," VanDerveer said. "The other one was not quite as close, the last one. But we're really excited. No one knows the score, no one knows who scored, it's a national championship and I'm really excited to represent Stanford. It's a great team. We did not play a great game today, however. But if we can win, not playing as well as we need to, I'm excited."
It wasn't a masterpiece by any stretch with both teams struggling to score and missing easy layups and shots, but Stanford did just enough to pull off the win.
Stanford (31-2) built a nine-point lead in the fourth quarter before Arizona (21-6) cut it to 51-50 on star guard Aari McDonald's 3-pointer.
After a timeout, Jones answered with a three-point play with 2:24 left. That would be Stanford's last basket of the game. McDonald got the Wildcats within 54-53 with 36.6 seconds left converting three of four free throws.
"I just owe it all to my teammates, they have confidence in me when I don't have confidence in myself," said Jones, who was honored as the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. "I saw they needed me to come up big and I did."
The Cardinal, after another timeout couldn't even get a shot off, giving Arizona one last chance with 6.1 seconds left, but McDonald's contested shot from the top of the key at the buzzer bounced off the rim.
"I got denied hard. I tried to turn the corner, they sent three at me. I took a tough, contested shot and it didn't fall," said McDonald, who fell near midcourt, slumped in disbelief while the Cardinal celebrated.
It's been quite a journey for VanDerveer and the Cardinal this season. The team was forced on the road for nearly 10 weeks because of the coronavirus, spending 86 days in hotels during this nomadic season.
The team didn't complain and went about their business and now have another NCAA championship. Along the way, the Hall of Fame coach earned her 1,099th career victory to pass Pat Summitt for the most all time in women's basketball history.
Now the 67-year-old coach has a third national title to go along with the ones she won in 1990 and 1992. That moved her into a tie with Baylor's Kim Mulkey for third most all time behind Geno Auriemma and Summitt.
VanDerveer had many great teams between titles, including the ones led by Candice Wiggins and the Ogwumike sisters — Nneka and Chiney, but the Cardinal just couldn't end its season with that elusive win in the title game until Sunday night.
It was the first women's basketball championship for the Pac-12 since VanDerveer and Stanford won the title in 1992. The last time a team from the conference was in the title game was 2010 when the Cardinal lost to UConn. That game was also played in the Alamodome — the site of every game in this tournament from the Sweet 16 through Sunday's championship game.
The entire NCAA Tournament was played in the San Antonio area because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
NOTES:
Stanford is the nation's all-time leader in NCAA team championships (127), totaling eight more than second-place UCLA (119).
Stanford has won at least one NCAA team championship during each of the last 45 seasons, dating back to the 1976-77 campaign.
Of Stanford's 127 NCAA championships, 67 have come from men's programs and 60 from women's programs.
Of Stanford's 127 NCAA championships, 35 have been won in the fall, 29 in the winter and 63 in the spring.
Stanford has won 51 NCAA championships since 2000.
Stanford won its third NCAA championship in school history. The Cardinal also captured NCAA titles in 1990 and 1992. Head coach Tara VanDerveer has guided Stanford to all three NCAA crowns.
Head coach Tara VanDerveer becomes Stanford's first female head coach to win an NCAA championship since Lele Forood (women's tennis) in 2019.
Head coach Tara VanDerveer is one of seven active Stanford head coaches to have won at least three NCAA championships, joining Lele Forood (women's tennis - 10), John Tanner (women's water polo - 7), Thom Glielmi (men's gymnastics - 3), Jeremy Gunn (men's soccer - 3), Greg Meehan (women's swimming and diving - 3) and Paul Ratcliffe (women's soccer - 3).
