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Issue date: 3/26/08 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Tony Avelar, Associated Press Stanford guard Candice Wiggins, left, and coach Tara VanDerveer, right, hug as they walk into the locker room after beating UTEP 88-54 in the second round of the NCAA women's college basketball tournament in Stanford, Calif., on Monday, Mar. 24, 2008.

STANFORD, Calif. - Before walking onto the Maples Pavilion floor for the last time in a Stanford uniform Monday night, Candice Wiggins gathered her teammates in a hallway just behind the court. In a private moment, she gave a speech.

"I look around and I see a different-looking team than the one that lost in the second round last year," she said as the Cardinal players closed in around her. "We're going to win . . . The committee, UTEP, nobody is going to give it to us on our home floor. We've got to take it."

Wiggins took it. She took Stanford to the Sweet 16 for the third time in her sterling career in perhaps her most devastating performance. The senior guard scored 44 points and Stanford defeated Texas-El Paso 88-54 to advance in the NCAA tournament. The second-seeded Cardinal (32-3) will face No. 6 seed Pittsburgh, which upset No.3 Baylor, next weekend in Spokane, Wash.

Wiggins tied Kate Starbird for the most points scored by a Stanford player in one game. (Starbird did it against USC on Jan. 13, 1996.) But it wasn't simply Wiggins' accurate shooting. She willed Stanford into the regional semifinals, also collecting nine rebounds and six assists.

"She talked about the slight" by the NCAA selection committee, said Wiggins' friend Marissa Rivera, a high school teammate at La Jolla Country Day. Wiggins and the Cardinal thought they deserved to be seeded first in the Spokane Regional. But Maryland received the No. 1 spot.

UTEP (28-4), the seventh seed and champion of Conference USA, was expected to disrupt the Cardinal's flow with a quick, three-guard attack and 6-foot-5 Izabela Piekarska plugging the middle.

But as Miners guard Natasha Lacy said the previous day, it would take a team effort to stop Wiggins, the Pac-10's all-time scoring leader. The Miners made a big mistake in not swarming her early.

Wiggins wasted no time in leading the way in front of 5,530 fans at Maples. She ended the first half with 24 points, five rebounds and three assists. She made 9 of 16 shots, including two three-pointers, as the Cardinal led 40-29. It was a vintage performance from one of the greatest players to wear a Stanford uniform.

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