Posted by Mechelle Voepel
One of Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer's assistants told her she took do-it-all junior Kayla Pedersen for granted.
"And I said, 'No, I don't,'" VanDerveer said during a teleconference Wednesday looking ahead to the No. 2 Cardinal's games against Utah (Friday) and Gonzaga (Sunday). "We really appreciate what she does. But in some ways, she is a facilitator. She makes everyone look good around her."
Jim O'Connor/US Presswire
The ever-versatile Kayla Pedersen is shooting 52 percent from 3-point range, averaging 31 minutes and leads Stanford with 18.8 ppg.
There are versatile players, and then there are Pedersen-type versatile players. The former is of value because they can fill in at more than one spot in the case of injury or foul trouble or for matchup reasons.
The difference with the Pedersen type -- not that there are many like her at any level of hoops -- is that she doesn't just "fill in." She can be an All-American at more than one position.
In fact, at ESPN.com, we picked her as one of the top five power forwards last season. This season, she made our top-five list at wing. With the emergence of sophomore Nneka Ogwumike at the 4 spot, Pedersen's ability to excel at the 3 is a big factor in how difficult Stanford will be to top this season.
VanDerveer is a perfectionist and not one to gush. So if she sounds like she's thrilled with Pedersen's play, you can be darn sure that Pedersen is giving her good reason to feel that way.
"Kayla is the difference for us," VanDerveer said. "She's hitting her 3, she's shooting over 50 percent [on her 3's], which she didn't do last year. She's our leading scorer, she's on the glass, she's fighting Jayne [Appel] and Nneka for rebounds from the 3 spot.
"She's playing the most minutes because she stays out of foul trouble, and she's really a huge key to our team. She's versatile, can play a 4, can play a 5, can play the 2. She defends and is an incredibly bright player. Sometimes I think she gets lost in the mix."
With Appel being a candidate for national player of the year at center, Ogwumike being such a dynamic athletic force, and JJ Hones returning from injury to provide her invaluable steady hand at point guard … yeah, it's true that Pedersen isn't necessarily the primary storyline for the Cardinal.
But the 6-foot-4 Pedersen's skills and whatever-it-takes demeanor have been impressing fans at Stanford, in the Pac-10 and across the nation since she started her college career out of Fountain Hills, Ariz. She's leading the Cardinal at 18.8 ppg, and is shooting 52.2 percent from 3-point range and 51.9 percent overall.
Stanford will be without freshman forward Joslyn Tinkle (foot injury) for an indeterminate time.
"Two things are going on in her foot," VanDerveer said. "There are two hot spots that are showing up. One might be an old injury, and one might be where she got stepped on. So it's two to four to six to eight weeks, that's what I've been told."
With Tinkle's return so up in the air, VanDerveer is all the more appreciative of the high-quality court time Pedersen can provide without needing much of a break. She's averaging 31.3 minutes per game.
Against Utah and Gonzaga, both very disciplined teams that execute well, 4-0 Stanford should get good tests before finals break.
Then, of course, comes the four-game stretch every Cardinal fan has been looking forward to since the schedule came out: Dec. 13 vs. No. 21 DePaul; Dec. 15 vs. No. 12 Duke; Dec. 19 vs. No. 5 Tennessee and; Dec. 23 vs. No. 1 UConn. The first three of those games are at Stanford, the last at Hartford, Conn.
Stanford has won its first four games by an average of 33 points, but VanDerveer said that hasn't affected her team's everyday demeanor at all.
"What I'm seeing right now is, because we're playing a schedule that is so tough, people are hanging on your words, they're working really hard in practice," she said. "There is no sense of complacency. They look at the schedule and know they need to get after it. And they are."
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