Tara did oppose it. I distinctly remember her saying that the work of a full season should not be compared with a brief tournament.
But if you look at the last 6 years, Stanford has benefited from the tournament. During those 6 years we never won the regular season, but we won the tournament 3 times.
I think that the tournament allows Tara's coaching style to shine. She is all about teaching and improving a team, and her teams get better as the year goes along. She does this better than other coaches, and so while her teams might lose a game or two during the regular season while they are still learning, they tend to execute much better come tournament time. Now that the Pac 12 is getting so much more talent than it used to, other teams can use that raw talent to compete better with us earlier in the season but we find a way to beat them later in the season. We did not win the tournament last year, but look at our reversal of fortunes against UCLA in the tournament as a textbook example, or our defeat of Oregon in 2018-2019 tournament.
But if you look at the last 6 years, Stanford has benefited from the tournament. During those 6 years we never won the regular season, but we won the tournament 3 times.
I think that the tournament allows Tara's coaching style to shine. She is all about teaching and improving a team, and her teams get better as the year goes along. She does this better than other coaches, and so while her teams might lose a game or two during the regular season while they are still learning, they tend to execute much better come tournament time. Now that the Pac 12 is getting so much more talent than it used to, other teams can use that raw talent to compete better with us earlier in the season but we find a way to beat them later in the season. We did not win the tournament last year, but look at our reversal of fortunes against UCLA in the tournament as a textbook example, or our defeat of Oregon in 2018-2019 tournament.