Mark Patton: UCSB Celebrates Some Sweet-16 Moments in Women’s Basketball

“Sweet 16” has a couple of poignant meanings for Mark French.

It’s been 16 years since he stepped down as the women’s basketball coach at UC Santa Barbara and became a grandfather eight times over.

But there was also a time when gramps was known fondly as “Big Daddy” by the Gauchos he guided to the Round of 16 in the 2004 NCAA Tournament.

That team returned this weekend from all over the country to huddle with French at the Thunderdome and celebrate the 20th anniversary of their historic season.

“It was such a special time, and such a special group,” he told Noozhawk.

It didn’t surprise French that nearly every player from that team made it to the halftime ceremony during Saturday’s contest against Cal State Bakersfield and the post-game reception.

The affection they shared kept them together after a 5-4 start to finish with a 27-7 record while beating both No. 16 Colorado and No. 9 Houston in the NCAA Regional at the Thunderdome.

Their season ended in the next round at Hartford with a 63-55 loss to Connecticut — the closest call that the Huskies and their star guard, Diana Taurasi, experienced during their run to the 2004 NCAA championship.

“When you have players who want to care about each other, it makes coaching a whole lot easier and much more effective,” French said.

“In the long run, that probably made the difference for them.”

All-Big West Conference forward Kristen Mann, the only Gaucho player who couldn’t attend Saturday’s event, is still playing professionally in France at the age of 40.

She did send a video message that was played during Saturday’s halftime celebration, as did former assistant coaches Cori Close and Tasha (McDowell) Brown, who are now at UCLA.

“Every time I’ve seen Kristen the last five years, she tells me, ‘Aw, this is it, this is my last year,’” French said. “And then I turn around and there she is again.

“I forget the name of the team she plays for in northern France (Bourges), but they love her there. She’s like a social sports phenom in that community.”

Santa Barbara’s Team

French turned women’s basketball into a community event for Santa Barbara during the 21 years he coached the Gauchos.

He won a school-record 438 games and 12 Big West Conference Tournament titles, including nine-straight from 1997 to 2005.

His teams also won seven NCAA Tournament games.

By millennium’s end, during the 1999-2000 season, UCSB women’s basketball was drawing more than 4,000 fans for successive Big West games against UC Irvine, Nevada and Long Beach State.

That season reached its climax with a school-record turnout of 5,824 for a first-round NCAA Tournament game against Rice.

“There were a number of times — from maybe ’98 on — when I had to kind of stop myself during the middle of those games,” French said. “I’d find myself gazing up at the crowd and going, ‘Wow! Look at all these people!’

“I also felt — and I still do — how wonderful it was to be part of something as great as the growth of post-Title IX women’s sports, and basketball in particular.”

John Zant, sports editor of the now-defunct Santa Barbara News-Press during French’s early years at UCSB, stoked those fires by giving the same attention to women’s sports as it did the men’s.

Zant, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist, became one of the first traveling beat writers for a college women’s basketball team when he returned to full-time reporting in 1994.

“A lot of the attention we got was because the News-Press gave us such great coverage,” French said. “John obviously was a huge part of that. Our players were always so appreciative of his great writing.

“John did a lot more than just report the scores and the statistics of the game. He allowed our local community to really get to know our players.”

More Than a Coach

French was as much a teacher and counselor as a coach. He shared and supplied books that he felt would help his student-athletes and conducted weekly, half-hour meetings with each player.

Lisa Willett, who set a school record in 2004 when she played in her 129th game for UCSB, said French impacted the players in a personal way.

“College is an intense time of life,” she explained. “Who are we? What’s important to us? Who’s important to us?

“Coach French was a rock for me through it all.”

He inspired Brandy Richardson, recruited from the shores of Hawai‘i, to stand up to the big-time competition that UCSB was scheduling. She quickly became the fiercest defender and rebounder on the 2004 team.

“Coach French, there’s no other man out there like him,” she said. “He’s a great father figure. He’s a great coach. He’s a great friend.

“He’s just everything that someone can be.”

Willett, a Santa Barbara High School graduate, and the others did come to UCSB with the right mindset for the culture created by French and Close, his former point guard.

Close is now in her 13th season as UCLA’s head coach, and her staff includes both former Gaucho assistants Tasha Brown and Tony Newnan.

“We really did try to recruit good kids who would be receptive to that,” French said. “A lot of recruits would hear us talk about that during their home visits, and they’d say, ‘See ya’ later Santa Barbara … We love the beach, but we’re not into that.’

“They weren’t into community service or building relationships or habits of excellence.

“But the kids that picked us, they did want to be good people. They wanted to care about their teammates.”

Taylor Suited for UCSB

That environment attracted Lindsay Taylor, a 6-foot-8 center from Chandler, Arizona. She developed into one of the most prominent fixtures on UCSB’s 2003-2004 squad.

“It wasn’t always easy for her, and in so many ways, being that tall as a 15-, 16-, 17-year-old,” French said. “I think she really appreciated the context of what we were doing.

“She wanted to be a lot more than just a basketball player. She hated it when people thought of her strictly as a basketball player.”

Taylor knew French could relate to her as a tall, lanky student-athlete.

The gangly, 6-foot-8 coach played basketball at UCSB before concentrating on baseball as an all-league pitcher for the school’s NCAA Tournament team of 1972.

“I think we were a good place for her, and she was certainly great for us,” he said.

Taylor won the 2004 Big West Player of the Year Award as a senior while leading the Gauchos in scoring (16.1 points per game), field-goal percentage (55.8%), rebounds (7.3 per game) and blocked shots (2.0).

Mann, a 6-2 junior, averaged 13.6 points and 6.6 rebounds that year.

Mia Fisher, a savvy and slashing junior, shot 51.1% from her guard position while scoring at a 9.5-point clip.

They foreshadowed the success of 2004 when they led the Gauchos to a 27-5 record the previous year.

The key addition in 2003-2004 — point guard April McDivitt — had transferred to UCSB from Tennessee’s undefeated national championship team of 2002.

The former Miss Indiana Basketball reassured French that she could step in well for the graduating Jess Hansen when they scrimmaged against each other during McDivitt’s redshirt season of 2002-2003.

“After every practice, I’d just look up at the skies and say, ‘We’re doing something right here,’” French said. “We knew what we had.

“Having a point guard that you just know will take care of the ball and make good decisions and has that kind of experience along with those skills … I knew that it was going to put us over the top with everything else we had.”

McDivitt, a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, had considered transferring to Indiana or Kansas State before choosing UCSB.

The Gauchos’ community involvement, especially within Santa Barbara’s faith community, sold her on French’s team.

“I believed in the philosophy of the program,” she said. “After losses, (coach French) isn’t angry. He puts them into perspective with life.

“After my junior year at Tennessee, I stepped back and evaluated my priorities.”

Roller-Coaster Start

The Gauchos looked promising enough to rank No. 18 in the preseason polls of 2003-2004.

They also earned an invitation to the Preseason National Invitation Tournament. UCSB beat both the University of San Diego and 19th-ranked Utah in their first two tournament games at the Thunderdome.

But several steps forward at the Thunderdome were followed by a few pratfalls on the road.

UCSB was routed at No. 5 Texas Tech, 68-41. And after rebounding with home wins against No. 21 Arizona and Illinois, it suffered a similar loss of 75-49 at Florida.

“We had some ups and downs at the beginning,” French said. “We were going through some things … Not a loss of confidence, but we had some things that needed to be taken care of.”

Rebounds were a major issue in the Florida game. The Gators grabbed 25 more than the Gauchos.

“I mean to ask the players about that when I see them this weekend,” French said. “Like, ‘Brandy … What was going on there?’”

UCSB followed that up with a 71-70 overtime win at Cincinnati before a close loss of 65-61 at No. 8 Purdue. Those games sandwiched a two-day side trip to McDivitt’s hometown of Connersville, Indiana.

“It’s one of my fondest memories from that year,” French said. “We’re driving on the bus to spend time with her family and do a workshop in her high school gym, and we see this big billboard coming into town.

“It says, ‘Welcome to Connersville, Indiana — Home of the 1999 Miss Indiana Basketball,’ and it had a big picture of April.

“Then we go to her house, and they’ve got a basketball court in their barn. We really got a feel for what Indiana basketball is all about.”

The Gauchos picked it up after a 73-59 home defeat to No. 17 Ohio State. Of their four preconference defeats, three were to nationally ranked teams.

They won 22 of their next 24 games while going 17-1 in conference.

Strength in Numbers

“Our roster checked a lot of boxes,” French said. “We had good depth with players like Jenna Green … As a freshman, before she hurt her knee, she was a big-time player.

“She came off the bench in the (NCAA Tournament) game against Colorado when Lindsay got into foul trouble and dominated their big, 6-5 center, who was a really good player.”

Green, an All-Big West first-team player in both 2006 and 2007, did stick it out after missing two straight seasons and won her third all-league honor in 2009. The 130 games she played broke Willett’s career record.

Sophomore guard Karena Bonds, the cousin of baseball superstar Barry Bonds, “was a great defender and really athletic player” for the 2004 team, French said.

“And of course, Lisa Willett was so good in everything she did,” he added. “It really helped us to bring in players like that.”

He considered that 2004 team, along with those of 1992 and 2000, to be among his best at UCSB.

“The 2000 team versus the 2004 team, with both of them playing well against each other, would’ve been a heck of an intrasquad game,” French said.

“I think we maybe had a little more versatility in 2004, but Erin Buescher (a 2000 All-American) was such a superstar just by herself.”

Buescher was joined on the 2000 All-Big West First Team by fellow Gauchos Stacy Clinesmith and Kristi Rohr.

They finished with a 30-4 record and were ranked No. 9 in the final Associated Press poll.

They lost to Rice, however, in a first-round NCAA game at the Thunderdome, 67-64.

French opted to change his approach when UCSB played host to the first two rounds again in 2004.

“In 2000, we did a lot of other things than just preparing on the basketball court,” he said. “We did booster events and thought of that as a way to really continue to grow women’s basketball in the local area and get more exposure for our program.

“As it turns out, the exposure we got wasn’t very good.

“The second time around, in 2004, we didn’t do any of that. We did media interviews as called for — we were polite. But other than that, we just stayed focused and didn’t prepare any differently than the way we prepared for a Big West regular-season or tournament game.”

Houston, You Have a Problem

UCSB routed Colorado 76-49 in the first round before scoring a 56-52 upset over third-seeded Houston.

Taylor tormented the Cougars with a double-double of 20 points and 10 rebounds. Mann maneuvered for another 17 points. Houston coach Joe Curl, however, was most impressed with UCSB’s physical brand of defense.

“They really brought it to us,” he said afterward.

The following week, UConn was equally struck by a Gaucho defense that bumped the Huskies off cuts, denied entry passes into the post and overplayed its wings.

McDivitt fueled UCSB’s offense by scoring 20 points.

The Gauchos got as close as 55-50 before UConn pulled away for its 63-55 victory before 14,253 relieved fans at the Hartford Civic Center.

“It was kind of a chess match,” Huskies coach Geno Auriemma said during the post-game interview. “Every time we would do something, they would do something.

“Every time we made a change, they made a change.”

Taurasi, the Naismith National Player of the Year, had to work hard against Richardson to score her 21 points.

“After the game, Auriemma said, “Wow! Where did you get that kid?’” French recalled. “I won’t say exactly what he said, but it was close to, ‘She beat the living crud out of us.’

“Brandy was a gem. She was the sweetest kid off the court and, boy, what a warrior on the court.”

Taurasi clearly felt the presence of Richardson and her fellow Gauchos.

“This was one of the most demanding games we’ve had all year,” she said after the game. “It feels really good to win something like that.”

The Gauchos, for their part, won some national respect that day. And that is still remembered well, 20 years later.