USC and UConn are already underway. It’ll tough to top what we just saw, but JuJu Watkins and Paige Bueckers should make it worth your while to stay in front of your TV a bit longer.
After that, we’ll have one of the most compelling Final Fours imaginable. Women’s basketball is having a moment, to be sure. And it’s hard to argue with that.
Thanks for following along with me tonight, and have a lovely April.
FINAL: Iowa 94, LSU 87
If you haven’t yet jumped on the Caitlin Clark bandwagon, you’ve missed out. She’s the most exciting player in basketball right now. Not women’s basketball. Not college basketball. Any basketball.
LSU didn’t give up its crown without a fight. Angel Reese dominated much of the first half. Flau’Jae Johnson battled for 23 points. But Clark was even better than usual, answering the call in this titanic matchup.
All we need to know now is whether this game will break some ratings records.
Well, that, and the remaining games in this tournament. This only got Iowa to the Final Four. USC and UConn are next. And we still may have a USC-USC matchup (Southern California vs. unbeaten South Carolina).
LSU 84-94 Iowa, 0:23.9, fourth quarter
Clark has set NCAA Tournament career records for 3-pointers and assists. She’s fouled. One down – that’s 40 points. Another one – make it 41.
LSU 84-92 Iowa, 0:26.1, fourth quarter
Clark hasn’t made a mistake in a while, but she makes one here, fouling Poa on a 3-pointer that the LSU guard still hits. Poa misses the free throw, but LSU keeps possession, and Johnson winds up scoring. That’s five points on one trip down the court. If they do that twice more …
LSU 79-92 Iowa, 0:41.9, fourth quarter
Numbers:
Reese finishes with 17 points and 20 rebounds. Yes, with a 0 at the end.
Clark has 37 points, 12 assists and 7 rebounds.
Martin has 21 points.
Iowa calls timeout. ESPN’s Rebecca Lobo points out that Iowa surely did that so they could opt to take the ball at midcourt in the offensive half.
Clark dribbles and dribbles. LSU seems hesitant to foul her of all people. They finally do so, and she hits both shots.
LSU 79-90 Iowa, 0:52.7, fourth quarter
Williams fouls Affolter, who hits both of her shots. Williams comes back the other way to hit a 3, and LSU uses its last timeout. That’s … odd.
LSU 76-88 Iowa, 0:59.5, fourth quarter
The only way LSU can get back in this game is to hit free throws while Iowa misses, and Marshall obliges by fouling Williams, who hits both shots from the line. Iowa calls timeout.
LSU 74-88 Iowa, 1:05, fourth quarter
LSU presses hard, but that leaves Martin wide open under the basket. She kills a second or two before laying it in.
But LSU’s Poa gets a fifth foul on Stuelke with a clever play, simply stepping in front of her as she runs down the court without looking where she’s going.
Johnson misses a wild shot, and Van Lith fouls Martin. She drains both free throws.
LSU 74-84 Iowa, 1:45, fourth quarter
Offensive foul on Angel Reese, and she’s out of there. That’s five. Mulkey can’t believe it, because she apparently was watching something else at the time. That’s as obvious a call as you’ll ever see, coach.
LSU 74-84 Iowa, 1:55, fourth quarter
Clark misses, and LSU goes quickly the other way. Williams makes a layup, and LSU calls timeout. They only have one left.
LSU 72-84 Iowa, 2:17, fourth quarter
Johnson is now guarding Clark, who misses from very long range. But Johnson fouls Marshall hard after the Iowa guard swipes the ball, and that’s her fourth.
Clark drives but travels.
Reese is fouled and will shoot. She makes one of two.
Jill Kayser writes to complain that the commentators are all about LSU. Yeah, I don’t know. I’d say there’ve been a lot of shots of Mulkey.
Clark feeds Hannah Stuelke, who just picked up her fourth foul but makes the layup here and is fouled. That’s four fouls on Angel Reese.
LSU 71-82 Iowa, 3:59, fourth quarter
Reese hasn’t scored much since the first half, but she’s up to 17 rebounds to go with her 16 points. The stars have certainly delivered here. But so has Johnson (16 points) for LSU, and Morrow has 14 points and 12 boards. For Iowa, Martin’s 15 points and Affolter’s 14 have been vital.
We resume for the last 4:49 of the game, and Iowa brings it up slowly. A couple of passes, and … did we mention Martin? She hits a fadeaway jumper with 3 seconds on the shot clock.
Did we mention Johnson? She answers with a layup.
LSU 69-80 Iowa, 4:49, fourth quarter
Clark hits from a very, very, very long way away. That’s 37 points to go with her 10 assists.
LSU loses control on the other end, and Iowa ties it up. They’ll have possession when we return from the TV timeout.
ESPN puts Iowa’s win probability at 99%. That’s a bit much. This isn’t over.
LSU 69-77 Iowa, 5:18, fourth quarter
A missed 3 at each end. LSU has a patient possession for a change, and Morrow scores.
Clark misses a layup but gets her own rebound and resets.
LSU 67-77 Iowa, 6:31, fourth quarter
Clark feeds Martin for her 10th assist.
LSU 67-75 Iowa, 6:54, fourth quarter
Van Lith hits two free throws, which must feel good after having the thankless task of chasing Clark around on defense.
Clark makes a bad pass on the other end for her first turnover in a while. Martin swipes the ball back from Johnson, and Morrow commits a foul.
LSU 65-75 Iowa, 7:47, fourth quarter
Reese misses a tough shot. Clark gets the rebound, pushes the pace, brings it back out, and feeds Martin for the layup.
Morrow answers at the other end.
Clark answers with her eighth 3-pointer of the night. This was from routine distance.
LSU 63-69 Iowa, 8:55, fourth quarter
Williams hits a much-needed 3 for LSU. O’Grady misses a flat-footed jumper, then commits a foul at the other end.
Morrow scores for LSU, and the lead has been cut almost in half.
End third quarter: LSU 58-69 Iowa
Affolter hits two free throws.
Van Lith turns it over. Mulkey is on the bench with her head in her hands and almost in her own lap.
Clark winds down the shot clock, then misses a difficult layup. Reese gets the rebound, and Johnson tries a 3 at the buzzer. It’s off target.
Third quarter: Iowa 24, LSU 13.
LSU 58-67 Iowa, 0:44.2, third quarter
The referees check a replay to see if they missed an “intentional foul” on LSU, but it looks like it’s just grazing the Iowa player’s cheek.
The ageless Village People classic YMCA plays while the referees check the monitor.
Upon resumption, Johnson gets a steal, stripping the ball from Martin, and Reese scores for the first time in eons.
LSU gets two offensive rebounds, with Johnson finally getting the ball in. Iowa races the other way, but Johnson catches up for the block.
Iowa steal, and Clark tosses a 40-foot pass to O’Grady for the layup.
LSU 52-65 Iowa, 2:45, third quarter
LSU is starting to look a little desperate now. Mikaylah Williams rushes a jumper that is well off the mark.
Kate Martin makes a nifty spin move and hits a short jumper to push the lead to 13.
LSU 52-63 Iowa, 3:40, third quarter
Now Clark is making plays on defense. She knocks the ball out of play to break up an LSU attack. Soon after the inbounds pass, she gets a steal. She looks like she might pull up for 3, but Affolter is making a run through the lane, so Clark feeds it to her instead.
LSU 52-61 Iowa, 4:23, third quarter
TV timeout after Clark misses one from another zip code.
The numbers here are staggering. Clark has 31 points. Reese and Morrow have 11 rebounds each. But a lot of those rebounds came early, and the Hawkeyes have been holding their own on the glass for some time now. Addison O’Grady’s stats are modest – 2 points, 3 rebounds and a block – but she’s helping Iowa establish an interior presence that was missed in the first quarter.
LSU 52-61 Iowa, 4:35, third quarter
Johnson fouls Clark in transition. The Iowa star keeps going to the hoops, but “continuation” generally doesn’t cover 5-6 steps. More importantly, that’s Johnson’s third. She’ll go to the bench.
Another LSU foul, and now Poa has three. Clark puts up the long shot anyway, even though it won’t count. Swish.
Ball back in play. Clark steps toward the arc, steps back, shoots, swish. That’s 31.
LSU 52-58 Iowa, 5:26, third quarter
Clark misses on a 3.
LSU feeds it to Reese at the other end, and O’Grady blocks her shot. Then she blocks another, but a foul is called. Reese to the line. She misses one and hits the second.
LSU 51-58 Iowa, 6:28, third quarter
Clark has 25.
LSU squanders its first possession after the timeout, putting up an airball.
Clark dribbles up to about 30 feet from the hoops and shoots. Swish. Clark has 28.
Johnson, who has the last 10 LSU points (thanks, ESPN commentators), gets an offensive rebound and scores to stop the run.
LSU 49-55 Iowa, 8:02, third quarter
Clark twists, twirls, shoots from 800 feet, scores. LSU timeout.
LSU 49-52 Iowa, 8:31, third quarter
Johnson hits two free throws. She has 10 for LSU.
Clark answers, drawing contact on a drive to the hoop.
Iowa gets a defensive rebound and goes off to the races but blows the layup.
LSU scores.
Iowa scores.
This is looking like the first quarter.
Updated
LSU 45-48 Iowa, 9:35, third quarter
Clark opens the half with a trademark high arcing 3 from the parking lot.
Clark has the advertising advantage, though, starring in two ads in a single break during halftime.
Seems like someone should pitch an ad in which Reese catches everything around her – basketballs, books, anvils …
ESPN’s win probability shows Iowa at 52.1%. I’d still lean toward LSU here. The rebounding advantage is just too much, and Reese is having a game for the ages.
A few numbers …
Scoring slowed a good bit in the second quarter, in which Iowa had a 19-14 edge.
Iowa is still shooting 50% (17 for 34). LSU isn’t far behind at 46.3% (19 for 41).
Reese has 13 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals and 2 blocks. If only my fantasy NBA players would put up numbers like that.
Clark has 19 points and 5 assists. Affolter also has hit double digits already, with 10.
Halftime: LSU 45-45 Iowa
Clark hits another layup. Johnson answers with a jumper.
Clark runs the shot clock down, then dishes back to O’Grady for an easy jumper.
LSU has just enough time left, though, for Johnson to score again just before the buzzer.
The second quarter was sloppy at times, but this has been everything anyone could’ve wanted in a basketball game. Unless you have a significant rooting interest, in which case you’d rather someone had a 30-point lead by now.
LSU 41-41 Iowa, 1:03, second quarter
Van Lith drives and draws contact from Clark. The replay suggests Van Lith was the initiator.
Affolter goes on a wild drive that misses badly.
Then Clark adds to her highlight reel, effortlessly dribbling behind her back while driving for a layup. We’re tied again.
LSU 39-39 Iowa, 2:20, second quarter
With the shot clock nearing zero, Affolter blasts past a defender for an equalizing layup.
LSU 39-37 Iowa, 3:02, second quarter
Hey, the refs DID bring their whistles! Reese draws a crowd of defenders and is indeed fouled. But we’ll once again have a TV timeout before the free throws. Does anyone else think that’s a little unfair to the shooter?
After a couple of minutes away, Reese finally takes LSU’s first free throws of the night. She misses the first and makes the second.
Now we have another delay due to an issue with the ball.
LSU 38-37 Iowa, 3:22, second quarter
Affolter misses her first shot after three makes, but she comes back with a strong defensive play to slow down LSU. But Johnson hits a difficult jumper with the shot clock, for perhaps the first time tonight, winding down.
Stuelke posts up against Reese and tries a few fakes. Reese doesn’t bite, and she spikes away the shot.
But after a good defensive sequence for Iowa and some inexplicable no-calls, Iowa comes back in transition, and Clark hits a long 3 to end her mini-drought.
LSU 36-34 Iowa, 6:00, second quarter
Stuelke hits both free throws to cap a 6-0 Iowa run, but Reese answers with a bank shot at the other end.
LSU 34-30 Iowa, 6:38, second quarter
Reese limps to an exercise bike.
Johnson knocks over an Iowa defender, but there’s no call.
Stuelke drives and is fouled.
Reese comes back in. She’s clearly limping.
LSU 34-30 Iowa, 7:41, second quarter
This time, it’s a foul, as Reese makes a lot of contact with the driving Clark.
But Reese lands badly and literally hops off the court on one foot.
Clark hits one of two free throws, but the big story here is whether Reese can come back in.
LSU 34-29 Iowa, 9:00, second quarter
Affolter hits a 3, her second of the game, to stop a 13-0 LSU run.
Clark works the ball inside and dishes, but Reese emphatically blocks the shot. Looked like a foul to me, but I’m not a ref.
Oh, wait – yes I am. But I’m a soccer ref. Can’t trust us.
“Angel can score down there at will,” Mulkey tells ESPN’s Holly Rowe between quarters. “Don’t rub it in,” say millions of fans nationwide.
Star watch: Clark had 11 points in the first quarter. Reese had 10. Each player had three assists. But Clark had two costly turnovers, and Reese has five rebounds – matching Iowa’s team total.
End first quarter: LSU 31-26 Iowa
Iowa has an inbounds opportunity under the LSU basket, but Clark can’t find anyone open, and she gets called for a five-second violation.
Clark makes another bad pass, LSU goes off to the races again, and it’s a 10-0 LSU run.
Clark almost has yet another pass picked off, but it gets through to a teammate. It’s a bad shot in the end, though, and Iowa has suddenly gone cold.
This doesn’t look good for Iowa. LSU has the edge in rebounding and on defense, and no team shoots 70% for long.
LSU 27-26 Iowa, 1:16, first quarter
Clark misses a long shot. LSU can tie with a 3, but they instead miss a midrange jumper.
Iowa misses as well, and LSU fires down the court to Reese. Clark is back on defense, but she wisely doesn’t do too much that might draw a foul.
Clark then tosses an errant pass, and Reese steals. Layup, and LSU has the lead.
LSU 23-26 Iowa, 2:36, first quarter
Clark hits the free throw. Why do they allow TV timeouts before a free throw, anyway?
LSU responds by feeding the ball to Reese, who scores rather easily.
Iowa gets called for an offensive foul, which our commentators note was “sold” very well by LSU’s Morrow. In case you thought that only happened in soccer …
LSU 21-25 Iowa, 3:29, first quarter
Clark drives, lays it in and is fouled. Before she shoots her free throw, though, we have a timeout.
That’ll let us peek at the stats …
LSU has hit 9 of 16 shots from the field. They’re 3 for 7 from 3-point range.
Iowa is 10 for 14. That’s 71.4%. Exactly half of those have been 3s, so the percentage is the same – 71.4%.
LSU is staying in it with rebounding. They have 8 to Iowa’s 3, including 4 offensive boards.
LSU 19-23 Iowa, 4:20, first quarter
No one is missing. This is breathtaking.
LSU 17-20 Iowa, 4:38, first quarter
Ball movement. Balanced scoring. Offensive rebounding. That’s what LSU does.
Gabbie Marshall hits a 3 from Caitlin Clark range. That’s what Iowa does.
Quick bit of math during the timeout: Iowa is on pace to score 160 points. That would probably be a record of some kind.
LSU 9-17 Iowa, 6:03, first quarter
Kim Mulkey is angry after a traveling call gives the ball back to Iowa. She can only watch as Clark fires away from a few feet beyond the arc and sees the ball glide gently through the net.
They go back and forth again, and after Iowa again gets two points in transition, Mulkey calls timeout. Phew!
Updated
LSU 4-9 Iowa, 7:48, first quarter
Clark’s second attempt is off the mark, but after Van Lith opens LSU’s scoring, Clark comes back the other way and drives for a layup. She has five points.
Iowa gets a steal on the next possession and scores in transition.
Then they trade baskets.
Breakneck pace, as expected.
LSU 0-3 Iowa, 9:36, first quarter
LSU wins the tip and takes a quick shot that misses.
Iowa goes the other way, and Clark announces her presence with authority, hitting a 3-pointer. It was only a foot or two past the arc, so that’s a layup for her.
We’ve seen the clip of Angel Reese pointing to her ring finger during last year’s championship dozens of times now.
At last … tipoff!
Tipoff was not at 7:15.
I’m noting this just so you don’t think I’ve disappeared.
We will eventually have the most-hyped game in women’s college basketball history.
7:15 is the actual tipoff time. Reportedly. I’ve also seen 7:13 and 7:19.
Game time!
Well, not yet. But soon.
It’s always amusing when the ticker on ESPN says a game is starting at 7 ET when it’s clearly not underway at 7:03.
Scouting LSU
The Tigers’ nonconference schedule makes Iowa’s look like Murderer’s Row by comparison. Southeast Louisiana? Texas Southern? Niagara? And they beat Queens, which went 1-15 in the Atlantic Sun conference this year.
But they finished second in the SEC, which isn’t quite as strong as it was in past years but is still a tough challenge.
Angel Reese, who dominated the highlights with her gestures toward Clark last year, leads a relatively balanced offense with 18.7 points per game and dominates the boards with 13.2 per game. On any other team, Aneesah Morrow would have the top rebounding average at 9.9. Morrow is the second-leading scorer (16.5) on a team that has six players averaging double digits. Hailey Van Lith adds 3.7 assists per game to her 11.7 points.
Morrow (DePaul) and Van Lith (Louisville) transferred to LSU last summer.
Scouting Iowa
Caitlin Clark gets plenty of attention for her scoring output – 31.7 points per game. But she also has an equally impressive 8.9 assists per game. She even leads Iowa in rebounding at 7.3 per game. The downside – she averages 4.8 turnovers as well.
Sophomore forward Hannah Stuelke averages 14.0 points and 6.8 rebounds per game, topping out at 47 points in a win over Penn State. Senior guard Kate Martin is the other double-digit scorer at 12.8 points per game, and she matches Stuelke in rebounding.
The Hawkeyes haven’t played a particularly tough schedule. They have four losses – to Kansas State, Ohio State, Nebraska and Indiana, the latter by 17 points. Their best win avenged their loss to Ohio State.
The second game tonight will be another game in which the No. 3 seed is very much on par with the No. 1 seed they’re facing. Connecticut has won 11 national championships but none since 2016. They’ve been under the radar a little bit this year, hence the No. 3 seed, but their championship history could give them an edge over No. 1 Southern California, a powerhouse of the 1980s that has been away from the big stage for a few decades.
Preamble
Is this game the biggest in women’s basketball history?
It’s a rematch of last year’s national championship, a 102-85 barnburner punctuated by some taunting that prompted a national debate.
It features a transcendent player, Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, whose media profile has been enhanced by changes in NCAA rules allowing her appear in television ads.
It features a coach, LSU’s Kim Mulkey, whose sideline flamboyance attracts attention that is exponentially increased by various controversies, including her refusal to give even the most tepid support to Brittney Griner, who led Mulkey’s Baylor team to a 40-0 record in 2012, while the player was imprisoned in Russia.
Mulkey’s fraught relationships with her family and some (definitely not all) of her former players prompted a story in The Washington Post, against which Mulkey lobbed a pre-emptive strike.
But that story was overshadowed by a column in the Los Angeles Times positing LSU’s game vs. UCLA as a battle of good vs. evil. The newspaper took the unusual step of editing the column and saying a “previous version of this commentary did not meet Times editorial standards.”
Are you not entertained?
Beau will be here shortly. In the meantime, the teams may want to take a look at the three-point line if events elsewhere at this tournament are anything to go by:
The NCAA has come under criticism after it was discovered that the three-point lines were different lengths from the hoop on the two sides of the court in Portland for the Elite Eight.
The news emerged as NC State and Texas prepared to meet for a place in the women’s NCAA Tournament Final Four. Both teams’ coaches were notified but agreed to play despite the discrepancy. Basketball fans on X soon called out the NCAA over the disruption.
You can read the full article below:
