When Adam Keefe was recruited out of high school by Stanford, he wasn't going there with dreams of getting to the Final Four - at least not in basketball. Volleyball, maybe. Basketball, no way. Qualifying for the NCAA Tournament wasn't even much of a possibility, at least judging by past performance. Stanford had been to "the Big Dance" exactly once in history - when it won the whole thing just a few months after the attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into World War II.
But it was during Keefe's era in Palo Alto that the tide began to turn. When the Utah Jazz forward was a freshman in 1989, Stanford, following a 47-year drought, made it to the tourney. The Cardinal lost in the first round, but it was a start. During Keefe's junior season Stanford won the NIT and as a senior, they made it back to the NCAA Tournament again.Alas, the Cardinal lost in the first round for the second time during Keefe's playing days, but
just getting to the tournament laid the groundwork for bigger things to come for coach Mike Montgomery. Stanford is back in the Final Four for the first time since 1942. It plays Kentucky today.
"It's incredible the change that has been made in that program," said Keefe. "When I went there nobody expected us to do much of anything. Now they're in the Final Four. They just kept building and building. I'm really happy for them."
Keefe, of course, would love to see the Cardinal upset Kentucky. He'd also like to see the Utes beat North Carolina, setting up a Stanford-Utah battle for the national championship.
But while he likes the Ute players he's acquainted with, there is no question about which team his loyalty would lie.
He's a Stanford man through and through.