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Sunday, March 11, 2001
Three teams share crown, but Cardinal get ticket



For the first time in the history of the Pac-10, three teams share the conference title.

Washington, Arizona State and Stanford completed double round-robin play identical 12-6 records, but by virtue of a tiebreaker Stanford earns the conference's NCAA Tournament automatic berth.

Both the Cardinal and Huskies went 3-1 against the teams they are tied with, however, Stanford went 1-1 against fourth-place Oregon, while Washington went 0-2 against the Ducks this season.

It marks the first time the Pac-10 champion has finished with more than four losses. The Cardinal finished 18-10, 12-6 in the conference.

Nicole Powell had 15 points and 12 rebounds in Stanford's 51-49 win over Arizona State.

Powell made a free throw with 7 seconds left, then forced Arizona State's Amanda Levens to miss a jumper at the buzzer.

Bethany Donaphin added 10 points for the Cardinal.

Melody Johnson paced the Sun Devils (20-10, 12-6) with 15 points while Natalie Tucker added 10.

Arizona State went on a 7-2 run to open the second half to take a 31-25 lead with 16:44 left before Stanford responded with an 11-3 run to go up 36-34 with 12:01 to play.

The Cardinal led 48-43 with 3:21 left after Powell's 3-pointer but the Sun Devils got a 3-pointer from Levens and then Tucker's 3-pointer with 58 seconds remaining to close to 50-49.

The Huskies ended the regular season on a losing note as Kristee Porter scored 22 points and led UCLA's second-half comeback en route to a 81-56 win Saturday.

UCLA (6-23, 5-13), which shot 20-for-26 from the line in the second half, outscored Washington 53-22 after halftime.

Washington (19-9, 12-6) led 34-28 at the half, but UCLA scored 10 of the first 14 points in the second half and took a 40-38 lead at the 14:00 mark on a basket by Whitney Jones.

Jones, Michelle Greco and Porter each scored 14 points in the second half. Jones finished with a career-high 21 points.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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