"I like our chances,’’ the Bulldogs’ coach said of Saturday’s NCAA Sweet 16 matchup against South Carolina in the East Regional at Raleigh, N.C.

"It’s great to be working this week—that’s all I’ve got to say. It’s terrific.’’

Seventh-seeded Drake, which advanced with victories over Syracuse and Baylor in the first two NCAA rounds at Waco, Texas, takes a 25-7 record into its 10:30 a.m. game against third-seeded South Carolina (24-6).

The Bulldogs’ first NCAA Sweet 16 appearance since 1982 will be televised by ESPN2.

"If we follow our game plan, we’ll have a scheme—I guarantee you that,’’ Stone said.

Although South Carolina is a much taller team than Drake, Stone said she intends to have her players pound the ball inside.

"We’re not going to go away from Carla Bennett,’’ Stone explained. "We’ll go inside to Carla. But I think tempo will be a big key, as it was against Baylor.’’

Bennett, a 6-foot 3-inch junior center, is Drake’s scoring leader with a 16.1-point average and rebounding leader at 7.7.

"We’re the underdogs just because we’re the lower seed, I suppose,’’ Schmitz said, "but I think we turned some heads this past weekend (at Waco). People realize we’re not going to roll over and let teams push us around.

"We’re going to compete for the full game, and we’re going to give it our best effort. Hopefully, we’ll come out with a win and keep on surviving.’’

South Carolina has two starters taller than Bennett—6-4 center Petra Ujhelyi from Budapest, Hungary, and 6-4 forward Teresa Geter. Another foreign-born player—5-11 sophomore Cristina Ciocan of Bucharest, Romania, starts at guard.

In all, South Carolina has five players from foreign countries. In addition to Ujhelyi and Ciocan, there are reserves Ines Ajanovic from Belgrade, Yugoslavia; Tatyana Troina of Minsk, Belarus, and Linda Hoglund of Stockholm, Sweden.

"Their coach, Susan Walvius, started recruiting overseas when she was at Virginia Commonwealth, and she’s carried it on to South Carolina,’’ Stone said.

Forward Jocelyn Penn is averaging 16.4 points and guard Chaunzinski Gortman is at 15. Four starters—Penn, Geter, Gortman and Ujhelyi average 5.9 rebounds or more, with Penn the leader at 6.6.

"South Carolina is one of the best turnaround teams in the country,’’ Stone said. "South Carolina, Minnesota and Valparaiso had the best turnarounds in Division I.’’

Walvius was named the Southeastern Conference coach of the year after her team went from an 11-17 record in 2000-01 to 24-6. The Gamecocks were picked to finished 10^th in their conference this season.

Drake’s women are the only remaining major-college team in the state still in postseason competition. Women’s teams from Iowa and Iowa State bowed out of the NCAA on Monday.

"I’m extremely proud of what we’ve done,’’ Stone said. "We overcame a lot to beat a great Baylor team. No one thought we could win that game except for the people in our locker room. I couldn’t be happier.’’

Stone has had an outstanding two seasons at Drake after being at Wisconsin-Eau Claire for 12 years. She was 23-7 last season, and both of her Bulldog teams have been in the NCAA tournament. This is the school’s sixth postseason appearance in the last eight years.

Stone says she’s "thrilled about being at Drake’’ and Bulldog fans hope she continues feeling that way. She appears to be a great fit for Drake’s program.

The women’s tournament, like so many other things in sports, has sold out to television.

The minute that happened, tournament officials lost control of starting times.

Ask football coaches and fans about that. Ask them how they like playing games—even homecoming games--at 11 o’clock on Saturday mornings.

Ask them how they like playing on Friday night—a time that was generally reserved for high schools until the 2001 season.

My guess is if some network—cable or otherwise—came along and asked a couple of teams or a couple of conferences if they wanted to play games at midnight so they could be on TV, it would get the go-ahead.

The minute some outfit with a TV camera, an announcer and an ex-coach who is the commentator--whether it’s ESPN, ESPN2, Fox Sports Net or the university’s student station—offers to show up, teams will agree to change everything from the starting time to the brand of mustard put on the hot dogs in the concession stands.

Iowa State’s second-round NCAA game Monday night against Brigham Young had a 9:36 p.m. starting time at Hilton Coliseum. The reason? So it could be televised by ESPN2.

A stranger thing to me than the starting time was that attendance at the game was only 7,621 in an arena that seats 14,092. And please don’t tell me that the place was just over half-full because of the starting time.

Iowa State students, Brigham Young fans, people from Ames, Des Moines and the suburbs and Iowans generally interested in women’s basketball should have sold out the arena.

Don’t forget, the reason Iowa State was awarded the first- and second-round games, and had the potential of playing four consecutive NCAA games at home, was to draw fans.

The plan blew up in the faces of Iowa State and the NCAA when 11^th-seeded Brigham Young stormed back from a 13-point deficit and ambushed the third-seeded Cyclones, 75-69.

Brigham Young (24-8) had never won an NCAA game in four tries before beating Florida in the first round, and there are more than a few people wondering how Iowa State’s Bill Fennelly managed to get outcoached by the Cougars’ Jeff Judkins.

Higher-seeded, tournament-veteran teams such as Iowa State aren’t supposed to blow big leads in big games at home.

Now BYU, which pulled off the biggest upset so far, is only the third 11^th-seeded team to reach the Sweet 16 since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1994.

The Cyclones (24-9) had a chance to advance to the Final Four without ever leaving their home court, but flopped. They really don’t have much excuse for losing the game.

But back to starting times. Late starts aren’t the biggest problem with women’s basketball. The fact that teams like Iowa State are awarded home games—just so attendance will be better—is a major fault.

Until that changes, I’m left with the feeling that women’s collegiate basketball has not yet totally arrived.