FRESNO, Calif. —The party was on for the Louisiana State faithful. Tall Tiger Sylvia Fowles blew apart every Husky defense in the paint and Connecticut’s shooting went bitterly cold. Husky coach Geno Auriemma blubbered on the podium. A boisterous contingent of LSU fans cheered the program’s fourth straight trip to the Final Four.

Amidst all the celebration in the Fresno Regional final, one thing was conspicuously absent. Stanford.

The second-seeded Cardinal — playing the first- and second-round games in its own house — was supposed to be here, purging the ghosts of three straight trips to the Elite Eight without a victory.

Coming off a three-point loss to LSU in the 2006 Elite Eight, this was the year for the Cardinal women, with almost every piece from last year’s regional finalist squad back. But instead of rocking in Cleveland, the team stayed home, out-muscled by 10-seed Florida State in a 68-61 loss.

The criticism began immediately. “The team’s not tough enough. The gameplan was bad. The star player didn’t take enough shots.” To take it all in, one might have thought the program was in a death spiral.

Mike Eubanks, editor of thebootleg.com and The Bootleg magazine, admits that the season was a disappointment but feels the program is nearing the zenith of excellence of the 1990’s, when the team went to six Final Fours in eight years.

“This was the most talented team Stanford has had since 1997, with three players the caliber of Wiggins, Brooke Smith and Jayne Appel,” Eubanks said.

Eubanks points out the immense pressure of expectations coming into this season. The injuries to two starting point guards shattered continuity and hampered the development of the team.

He also says Candice Wiggins was a shell of herself, a result of a long break taken to recover from previous injury as well as injuries sustained throughout the season. While she had “Wiggins moments” where she successfully took the team on her back, Wiggins was far from the sparkplug she was her first two years.

Eubanks also points out that this year’s Pac-10 was inferior to last season, particularly in preparing its teams for NCAA Tournament play. Also missing was something like last year’s Krista Rappahahn, who did one thing — shoot the three — and did it well.

There are additional talking points about the state of the program now that the 2006-07 season is done.

Are rising powers taking away talent from Stanford, leaving it less able to compete nationally?

Not likely. The growth of women’s college basketball is riding a new wave of talented players, enough to fill out rosters all across the country. Ten years ago, it was a game dominated by a handful of schools: Stanford, Tennessee, Texas Tech and Louisiana Tech. Today there are at least twice that many schools with a fair shot at winning it all, and new powers have risen in Duke, Maryland, Arizona State, Rutgers and Baylor to name a few. Eubanks suggests that some of that growth can be traced to the success of the 1996 Olympic team, coached by Tara VanDerveer, that added national spotlight to women’s basketball.

But in terms of tradition, talent and institutional support, the Cardinal is still beside Tennessee and UConn as one of the top programs in the game. Stanford’s recent recruiting classes have been very strong. Some of that talent — Wiggins, Jayne Appel, Jillian Harmon and the point guards — has made instant impact upon its arrival.

Is the schedule preparing the team adequately for tournament play?

Yes and no. Stanford plays Tennessee, the crown jewel of the game, every season, and in the past two seasons scheduled aggressively with Texas Tech, Minnesota and Georgia, to go with a strong slate in the preseason WNIT. The rest of the season is dependent on the strength of the conference, with tougher Pac-10 competition furnace-testing the team for the dynamics of the postseason.

Is VanDerveer “losing it” as a coach?

Highly unlikely. The Cardinal just went to three straight Elite Eight games and lost them by a combined total of 12 points. According to Eubanks, the key factor in the analysis is the vast differences in personality and style between those three teams. The first year (2003-2004) was the Nicole Powell show, lifting the team with her performance. The second year was marked by the distributed leadership of five seniors. The third team was a grow-up-fast outfit built behind the experienced Wiggins and Smith.

Consistent success with that much change in style is a sign of strong coaching. Eubanks claims “the staff is as hungry as the program has been in a long time.”

Will the Pac-10 gain balance and national

recognition?

Probably both. With Duke coach Gail Goestenkors taking the Texas job, a long string of coaching dominoes are poised to fall. Charli Turner Thorne just got a contract extension at Arizona State and will continue to make her program a national player. The opportunity is there for Pac-10 programs to add women’s hoops to the athletics arms race.

The growth of women’s basketball in top-flight athletic schools — schools with BCS-caliber football programs and strong conference competition — might further concentrate success along internecine rivalry lines like Stanford-Arizona State and Duke-North Carolina-Maryland, leaving smaller-conference programs like Louisiana Tech and Old Dominion at a disadvantage.

Eubanks refuses to believe the program isn’t on the way up.

“To reinvent the team with three totally different sets of personnel, to go to the Elite Eight every year, to be so close to going to the Final Four, that’s like the 90’s,” he said.