Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer had a teleconference Tuesday looking ahead to the Cardinal's tournament this weekend. We were asking her about Nicole Powell, of course, and how frustrating it is dealing with injuries. VanDerveer said she has learned something.

Coale's Comments

Oklahoma beat Sam Houston State 79-52 on Tuesday. And while Oklahoma coach Sherri Coale was pleased to see her team respond with a win, the Sooners' two losses -- Caton Hill and Erin Higgins to season-ending knee injuries -- were jaw-dropping material. "It's just one of those deals where you question, is this for real? When and where does this happen twice in one day? It is beyond a fluke. It is beyond strange," said OU coach Sherri Coale, who led the Sooners to the best season in Big 12 history last year. "You've got to look at this and say there's a reason. We will find it and turn it into something good. I firmly believe we have a shot of being a great story come early spring." Hill, the Sooners' lone returning starters from last season's run to the NCAA title game, averaged 12.6 points and 6.9 rebounds as a junior forward. Higgins, a dangerous 3-point shooter, is a former AAU All-American.

"To really enjoy today,'' she said, "and not put everything into the (NCAA) tournament and what's going to happen in March.''

Because March might come around and hand you two ACLs in a three-day period, as it did to Stanford in 1998. Or injuries might kick you in the teeth so hard earlier in the season that you're challenged to even think about March. That's what happened to Oklahoma on Tuesday.

During shootaround before OU's game against Sam Houston State, the Sooners lost freshman Erin Higgins to a right ACL tear. She had torn her left ACL in January and missed the second half of her high school senior season.

Then about 40 seconds into the game, senior forward Caton Hill tore her left ACL.

It's hard to know what else to say about ACL injuries and their devastating impact on women's basketball. Sadly, it's a uniting thing, something almost no program has been spared.

We all just hope for a medical breakthrough in the near future that either helps substantially in the prevention of the injury or somehow makes recovery even quicker. There has been progress in that area, but it's still a long haul.

Higgins had a really nice debut at the State Farm Tipoff Classic two weeks ago, scoring 18 points against Tennessee and looking like an immediate-impact freshman for the Sooners, who are coming off an appearance in the national championship.

Hill ... well, I hardly know where to begin here. I feel like throwing up every time I hear of an ACL injury, but must confess that they are especially hard to take when they happen to someone I've seen play and talked to a lot.

Hill has been an outstanding competitor in the Big 12 for three years and has a magnetic presence. Despite her well-known goofy humor, Hill is the most adult of players: realistic, never shies from the blunt truth, ambitious, forward-looking.

Turkey Tournaments

The various Thanksgiving tournaments are almost always good for an upset or two, or at least games that push favored teams. You can be sure Duke's coaching staff is stressing to the Blue Devils that sometimes the most dangerous games are right after a big high. Duke, coming off its victory over Tennessee, is in the Paradise Jam event in the Virgin Islands and has potentially tough matchups in Old Dominion on Friday and Arkansas on Saturday. ODU and Arkansas also play each other; that game is Thursday. Kansas State, having won the Preseason WNIT title with four victories at home, goes out on the road for the first time. K-State meets Temple on Friday at the Stanford Tournament while the host Cardinal face Princeton. Winners meet for the title Saturday; if it's Stanford vs. K-State, that will be those programs' first meeting. Of course, there's also a chance that Temple coach Dawn Staley and Stanford's Tara VanDerveer, who coached Staley in the 1996 Olympics, could meet. Connecticut is the big dog at the Rainbow Wahine Classic. North Carolina would seem to be the chief challenger, especially with the injuries Oklahoma suffered Tuesday. These aren't tournament matchups, but they are intriguing: On Saturday, Notre Dame is at Southern Cal and Sunday, Georgia is at Arizona. USC lost at K-State in the Pre-WNIT semifinals but showed tough defense that could give the Irish some problems as it did K-State. Arizona went to overtime before losing to LSU last week, so we'll see how it fares against another SEC foe. Georgia then plays Dec. 2 at Arizona State.

At Big 12 media day, Hill was talking about the future and medical school. She has spent some time with surgeons and that might be what she wants to do.

She would be perfect: cool head, very confident, extremely smart and not afraid of tough situations. She acknowledged how high-level basketball, in fact, really can prepare you for your life's work in other areas.

Basketball obviously isn't life or death or anything close, but it does put a person in situations where her body and mind must process excitement, stress, pressure, etc., and still function logically and according to training.

"I've learned from basketball that I'm good under pressure,'' Hill said. "And that if you give your best and things still don't go your way, you just deal with that.

"I think if you're a doctor, you have to understand that concept or it would be so hard for you. Sometimes it doesn't work out.''

Was the blood and guts of surgery scary at all, or hard to get used to looking at? Hill said not really because she'd just concentrate on watching every step of the process and that the more you saw it, the more mundane it actually seemed.

But then she laughed and said the funny thing was, she could still get a little squeamish over something "small,'' like if someone had a deep cut that needed to be stitched up.

I filed away all this information, certain I'd be doing a feature story on Hill this season. Hill never got hurt. She played so hard all the time. A truck could hit her and she'd just take the charge, you know?

The 6-foot-1 Hill has been undersized inside without a bigger cohort to help her most of her three years at OU. That's because 6-3 Jen Cunningham had her career pretty much shredded by ACL injuries.

This year, OU finally has an experienced player in 6-3 Theresa Schuknecht to pair with Hill ... and Hill gets hurt. Schuknecht is a senior, so they won't get a season together. It's a real shame.

If there's good news for OU, it's that these injuries happened early enough that the players can get medical redshirts.

The Sooners head to Hawaii for the Rainbow Wahine Classic, and it will take a while for the shock of all this to set in. Then they simply have to figure out other answers.

Hill, you can be sure, will be on the sidelines doing everything she can to help them.

Mechelle Voepel is a regular contributor to ESPN.com's women's basketball coverage. She can be reached at mvoepel@kcstar.com.