I’d be remiss if I didn’t send you to the game report. Thanks again for following along with me today.
So the most compelling women’s basketball season ever has come to an end with what felt like an inevitability to anyone who saw South Carolina play this season.
And South Carolina might just keep doing this. They’ll lose Cardoso and Paopao. But Chloe Kitts, Raven Johnson and Ashlyn Watkins are sophomores. Tessa Johnson and MiLaysia Fulwiley are just getting started. Arguably, this is more impressive than UConn’s dominant runs, as women’s basketball has more parity than it did during some of those years. And again – Dawn Staley put together an unbeaten season after losing all five starters.
South Carolina’s quest for back-to-back unbeaten seasons will be worth watching next year. So will the WNBA, with Clark, Cardoso, Angel Reese and other players who have played before eight-figure TV viewing audiences move into the pros.
Join me again tomorrow night. Apparently, there’s a men’s game. And maybe it’ll be time to give Dan Hurley some overdue recognition – if UConn can stop Zach the Giant. See you then.
Last word on Caitlin Clark for now …
The neutral fan would’ve preferred to see a few more of Clark’s shots find their target in a game that went down to the wire. It wasn’t to be. Clark hit just 10 of 28 shots, 5 of 13 from 3-point range.
But if you want to point to a determining factor in this game, look at this …
Clark led the team … in rebounds. She had 8.
Next? Fellow guard Kate Martin, with 5.
For South Carolina? Cardoso had 17 rebounds. Kitts had 10. The total edge: 51-29. A lot of those rebounds were virtually uncontested.
Somewhere, some TV or radio pundit who can’t walk a flight of stairs without getting winded is preparing a hot take about Clark not rising to the occasion. Ignore that person. Clark is brilliant. South Carolina is simply that much better at every other position, especially inside.
Staley is too overcome with emotion to do a postgame interview. She crumples in half, sobbing and shaking her head. She finally gains her composure and credits her coaching staff with the scouting job they did in preparation.
Then she gets philosophical about her players. “They etched their name in the history books. This is the unlikeliest group to do it.”
South Carolina wins the national championship 87-75
The Gamecocks left no doubt. South Carolina is a team for the ages, arguably better than the UConn juggernauts of years gone by because Dawn Staley reloaded a team that lost all of its starters from a near-perfect team and wound up with a perfect team. Unbeaten. Thoroughly deserved.
Iowa sends in Molly Davies, who was too injured to play meaningful minutes in this game. Clark departs. That’s the end of a career that transformed college basketball.
Raven Johnson strips the ball from Clark immediately after the inbounds play, and Iowa backs off, conceding the game.
Iowa calls timeout with 53.5 seconds left. Not much point in that.
Iowa 75-87 South Carolina, 1:02, fourth quarter
Johnson hits one of two free throws. Martin tries a wild drive, and Cardoso easily corrals the layup. Clark fouls Paopao, who hits two free throws.
Iowa 75-84 South Carolina, 1:26, fourth quarter
Paopao misses, and we have a phantom foul on Iowa. Rebecca Lobo, grasping at straws, says Martin reached out a hand and grabbed a player. The officials aren’t sure which player was fouled. They decide it’s Watkins, and she makes one of two free throws.
Clark rushes a shot at the other end, then fouls Raven Johnson again.
It’s over.
Iowa 75-83 South Carolina, 2:04, fourth quarter
Bad decision. The shot clock is almost at 0, but Affolter fouls Paopao. She hits one of two shots.
Inside to O’Grady. Will someone from Iowa’s bench score at last? Nope. Cardoso blocks it. Then she gets an offensive rebound in a tangle of bodies and scores.
Clark flings up a shot that looks desperate. It’s off the mark. Then Clark fouls Raven Johnson.
Iowa 75-80 South Carolina, 3:17, fourth quarter
Hall scores quickly for South Carolina. Iowa nearly turns it over, but Marshall races to swat the ball away from the midcourt stripe and Affolter ends up scoring while getting fouled. She converts the free throw. The lead is five.
Raven Johnson misses an open 3. Clark gets the rebound. Can Iowa make it a one-possession game?
No. Martin travels while driving. Allegedly. I’m not buying that one.
Iowa 72-78 South Carolina, 4:39, fourth quarter
This one hurts. Watkins gets an offensive rebound and is on the verge of falling out of bounds, but Martin fouls her.
TV timeout.
Iowa needs the final 4:39 of this game to be a replay of the first 4:39.
Iowa 72-78 South Carolina, 4:46, fourth quarter
Affolter gets a rebound and pushes it quickly the other way, but Watkins races back for the steal. Tessa Johnson draws a foul on Martin and hits two free throws to end the Iowa run.
Clark tries a fadeaway jumper in the lane and barely hits the rim.
Cardoso grabs a rebound from a Johnson 3 but travels and turns it over. ESPN’s commentators think it should’ve been a held ball and possession arrow, but I disagree – and yes, I’m a ref. (In soccer.)
Clark feeds Martin for her fifth assist.
Iowa 70-76 South Carolina, 6:23, fourth quarter
Kitts scores on a … you guessed it … putback from an offensive rebound. Such a mismatch inside. Cardoso has 12 rebounds. Kitts has 10. Iowa has 25 total.
Affolter hits two free throws.
Iowa has come back in some big games this season, including the semifinal against UConn, but South Carolina is a couple of levels better than UConn this season.
Clark knows she has to step up, and she hits a 3 off a nasty crossover dribble. She then fires from very long range and misses, but Iowa gets the rebound, and Marshall hits from 3. Not quite over yet?
Iowa 62-74 South Carolina, 7:58, fourth quarter
Martin misses a turnaround jumper. Cardoso scores on a putback.
Cardoso fouls Martin, but the Iowa guard misses the first free throw. She at least makes the second.
Iowa 61-72 South Carolina, 8:41, fourth quarter
South Carolina is 10 minutes away from becoming the 10th team to go unbeaten through a Division I women’s season. UConn has done it six times.
Stuelke draws a foul inside but badly misses the first free throw. The second rolls around the rim and falls out.
Affolter falls down on defense, literally, and Tessa Johnson scores again. She has a career-high 17 points.
Clark scores again in traffic. Fulwiley quickly answers at the other end.
Iowa 59-68 South Carolina, end third quarter
Iowa isn’t just a one-woman show. The problem is that South Carolina isn’t just a five-woman show. Nine players have scored. Tessa Johnson has 15 off the bench. Iowa still has no points from its substitutes.
Affolter makes a layup. Feagin turns it over on a three-second call.
But Clark misses once again. Iowa’s once-in-a-generation talent has gone ice-cold at the worst possible time. She is 8 for 21, and her last few baskets have been from less than 10 feet, not more than 25.
Iowa 57-68 South Carolina, 1:06, third quarter
Watkins blocks a 3-point attempt by Martin, but the Iowa guard retrieves the ball and drives, drawing a foul from Watkins. She makes both free throws.
Cardoso misses. Martin misses. This is not the barnburner we had in the first quarter.
Tessa Johnson hits a 3. Iowa will call another timeout. This is slipping away.
Iowa 55-65 South Carolina, 2:28, third quarter
Clark finishes in the paint. Ashlyn Watkins answers with an offensive rebound and putback.
Clark feeds Stuelke again, but she misses. Tessa Johnson hits a 3 at the other end. Gabbie Marshall misses a 3 but gets a steal on the next possession. Clark misses another 3.
South Carolina slows it down. Hall is left open, and she knocks down the 3 for a 10-point lead.
Does Sports Reference know something we don’t? On Iowa’s season-by-season record, they have Iowa winning today. It’s looking less likely.
Iowa 53-57 South Carolina, 4:58, third quarter
Cardoso misses two free throws – she only hits 67.7% from the line. But Clark misses after stepping back to the 3-point line.
After a Kitts offensive foul, Gabbie Marshall finally asserts herself offensively with a 3 from the corner. Bree Hall answers with a short jumper.
Clark tries to draw a foul inside. Doesn’t get it.
Raven Johnson has a wide-open look but misses.
Clark answers with a beauty of an assist, finding Stuelke streaking down the lane.
Iowa ties up the ball and will have possession coming out of the TV timeout. This isn’t over yet.
Iowa 48-55 South Carolina, 7:03, third quarter
Out of the timeout, Iowa works the ball around to Affolter, who misses again. Paopao turns it over. Finally, 2:45 into the quarter, Iowa scores on a difficult shot inside by Clark.
Iowa 46-55 South Carolina, 7:59, third quarter
Clark rushes a 3, and Kitts scores inside at the other end. After an Iowa miss, Kitts scores again. Affolter misses a 3, and Paopao hits a jumper. That’s 11 straight points on either side of halftime. Iowa calls timeout.
Reminder – South Carolina blew open a close game against NC State with a dominant third quarter.
So what did I predict? I had South Carolina and Iowa in the final, with South Carolina winning 77-74. I’m currently 3,398th out of more than 118,000 entries, so I’d be poised to move up if this lead holds. I’d have done much better if UConn hadn’t beaten Duke (my alma mater, whom I correctly predicted would upset Ohio State) and the other USC (another college in our family).
Where did we stand at halftime of last year’s Iowa-South Carolina game? Iowa led 38-37. They outscored South Carolina 21-18 in the third quarter and matched the Gamecocks’ 18 in the fourth for a 77-73 win. Clark had 41 points in that game. She’s on pace for 42 in this one, but she scored most of her points in the first six minutes today.
But this is a completely different South Carolina team this year. Last year’s Gamecocks had seven seniors/grad students in their last year of eligibility, including all five starters. They stayed in the game with a massive rebounding edge – 49 to 25 – but hit just 30 of 77 shots, including just 4 of 20 3-pointers.
So what lessons can we draw from that? Probably none, unless you want to extrapolate that Bluder held her own in the coaching department against Staley.
Halftime: Iowa 46-49 South Carolina
Martin hits a layup with 55 seconds left, and then things couldn’t have gone more wrong for Iowa. After an SC offensive rebound, Paopao hits from 3 again to give the Gamecocks the lead. Iowa can hold for a final shot, but Raven Johnson decides not to let them have that opportunity, swiping the ball from an unsuspecting Clark and racing away for a layup. Iowa can’t get another shot before the halftime horn sounds.
Clark has 3 turnovers and 2 assists. She leads the team with 5 rebounds, but that’s not necessarily a good thing, as it points to how badly the Hawkeyes are being beaten on the glass. South Carolina has 27 rebounds to Iowa’s 18.
Iowa 44-44 South Carolina, 1:00, second quarter
Dawn Staley calls timeout.
South Carolina’s bench has 22 points. Iowa’s has 0. In fact, only four Iowa players have scored – Clark (21), Stuelke (9), Martin (9) and Affolter (5). Affolter also has three assists, one more than Clark. How often does someone on Iowa’s team have more assists than Clark? This season – that would be exactly once. The player was Molly Davis, who is out injured.
Updated
Iowa 44-44 South Carolina, 1:04, second quarter
I was just about to say we haven’t heard from Paopao for a while. She hits a 3-pointer in transition.
Clark finally gets a good look and hits a 3, her first points of the quarter.
Feagin scores inside, and Clark loses the handle in transition. SC goes quickly to Kitts, who ties it again.
Iowa 41-37 South Carolina, 3:08, second quarter
Cardoso fouls Stuelke. She hits two free throws. Then Cardoso misses at the other end, and Clark feeds Martin for a short jumper.
Iowa 37-37 South Carolina, 3:52, second quarter
Caitlin Clark had 18 points in the first quarter. Through nearly six minutes of the second quarter, she’s still stuck on 18.
South Carolina first-years Fulwiley and Johnson have combined for 16 off the bench.
Stuelke hits the free throw. Chloe Kitts hits one of two on the other end to tie it again.
Iowa 36-36 South Carolina, 4:11, second quarter
Stuelke battles inside to score and draw a foul. Her free throw will come up after the TV timeout.
Iowa 34-36 South Carolina, 4:42, second quarter
Tessa Johnson strikes again with a 3-pointer to tie it. She has 9 points. How good is South Carolina going to be for the next several years with Johnson and Fulwiley just now finishing their first years?
Clark and Martin miss 3s.
South Carolina goes to its patient halfcourt offense again, and they find Cardoso again. The Gamecocks have the lead.
Iowa 34-31 South Carolina, 6:38, second quarter
In case you forgot, Clark also is one of the top passers the women’s game has ever seen. She dishes to Affolter for a 3-pointer. Cardoso draws another foul at the other end and misses twice, but Feagin grabs the rebound and puts it back in.
Affolter responds with another solid play, feeding Stuelke for a layup.
SC gets two offensive rebounds – a big issue for Iowa here – and Cardoso scores on the second.
Clark gets her second assist in short order, feeding Stuelke again.
Iowa 27-27 South Carolina, 8:16, second quarter
After a miss at each end, Cardoso pokes the ball away from Clark in transition.
Enter Tessa Johnson, who hits a midrange jumper and then a transition layup in traffic. The lead is down to three.
Cardoso blocks an O’Grady shot. South Carolina spreads the floor. The ball goes in to Cardoso, posting up against O’Grady. The big SC center scores and is fouled. To the free throw line she goes … and the game is tied.
In other news, Sweden has defeated Canada in the men’s curling world championship final. Italy scored three in the 10th end to force an extra end and then stole a point to beat Scotland in the bronze-medal game.
Back to our TV – Iowa coach Lisa Bluder is asked how to contain Fulwiley. “Man, she’s fast,” Bluder says.
Iowa 27-20 South Carolina, end first quarter
MiLaysia Fulwiley is playing her first year of college basketball, and she didn’t start today’s game. You wouldn’t guess that from her seven-point output so far.
Tessa Johnson cuts the lead to two, but Clark drives and scores.
The teams trade turnovers – for the first seven minutes or so, the ball movement on both sides was impeccable, but the defenses are in the ascendancy now.
But there’s no defense for Clark, who hits another long-range 3. She has 18.
Iowa 22-18 South Carolina, 1:35, first quarter
Kate Martin hits two free throws. She has seven points already.
Strong drive from Fulwiley gets SC back within seven.
Martin misses a long 3, and South Carolina slows it down. Stuelke fouls Cardoso as they battle for a rebound. South Carolina retains possession, and they work it to Cardoso … whose shot is emphatically blocked by Stuelke.
But Iowa turns it over, and Fulwiley hits a long 3. The lead is down to four.
Iowa 20-13 South Carolina, 3:46, first quarter
Clark is four points away from the record for points scored in NCAA Division I Tournament play.
South Carolina scores inside with a nice pass to Sania Feagin. Clark tries to draw a foul in the lane but doesn’t get it. Fulwiley scores off the offensive glass for South Carolina, and the lead is down to seven.
Iowa 20-9 South Carolina, 4:45, first quarter
Dawn Staley has a deeper bench from which to draw, and she goes to it.
TV timeout. Let’s catch our breath.
Iowa has hit 6 of 9 shots, including all three 3-point attempts. SC? Not as good – 4 for 14.
Iowa 20-9 South Carolina, 5:13, first quarter
Clark is fouled again on a 3-point shot – not just fouled but knocked to the floor. Ouch. She misses the third of the free throws. She’s on pace to score 104 points.
Iowa 18-7 South Carolina, 6:17, first quarter
Cardoso ends the SC drought. Then they foul Clark on a 3-point attempt. She hits all three.
Paopao hits a much-needed 3. Then Clark goes the other way and scores inside. She already has 8.
SC scores. Then Clark shoots from … I’ve run out of ways to describe how far she can be from the basket and score. She does it again.
Iowa 10-0 South Carolina, 7:22, first quarter
Iowa works the ball to Clark. Naturally, she drains it.
First 10 points to the Hawkeyes.
Iowa 7-0 South Carolina, 7:37, first quarter
Martin hits a short jumper and has the game’s first five points. Then after yet another SC miss – they’re all hitting the front of the rim – the Hawkeyes race down the court for an Affolter layup.
Iowa 3-0 South Carolina, 9:07, first quarter: Tipoff goes to South Carolina, not a surprise with Cardoso in the middle. They fail to score, and Iowa races the other way and gets the first points of the game on a Kate Martin 3.
Oliver Connolly informs me that the game is supposed to be on “Sky Sports Action” in the UK. But is it?
OK, we’re about to get started for real. But please do let me know about UK TV. If I can’t watch games like this in the UK, I’m not moving there.
Did anyone know Caitlin Clark would be this good?
She was ranked fourth among incoming recruits in 2020. Not far behind her were two players who started their college careers elsewhere but transferred to South Carolina – Kamilla Cardoso and Te-Hina Paopao.
UK TV? Joe Pearson writes from Indiana to say he saw that it’s on Sky in the UK.
Is there some sort of red button you’re supposed to press or something? Or is that the BBC? I need to spend more time in the UK.
Tipoff …
… will happen sometime shortly. As is always the case with US sports events, the start of the broadcast does not equal the start of the game, even if they’ve already done hours of pregame programming.
Email already? Nice!
Unfortunately, it’s a question I can’t answer: How can people watch this game in the UK? If you know, please let me know, and I’ll pass it on.
Iowa’s resilience
Caitlin Clark has led Iowa in scoring in all but three games this season. But one of those games was two days ago in the Final Four win over UConn. Hannah Stuelke put up 23 points in that game and led the way with a staggering 47 against Penn State in February. Kate Martin and Sydney Affolter have shown a knack for timely scoring. This is a team that can get down the court in transition, and if that fails, Clark can shoot from anywhere but the parking lot.
But they’re fallible. Kansas State, Ohio State, Nebraska and Indiana all upset the Hawkeyes this season. After dropping the Big Ten regular-season championship to Ohio State, Iowa needed overtime to beat Nebraska in the tournament final.
The UConn game showed, though, that this team can hang on and eke out a win under any circumstances. A few losses can sometimes toughen up a team, and teams don’t come much tougher than the Hawkeyes.
South Carolina’s dominance
This may sound like I’m boasting, but I think it’s more of a statement of how … not young I am. I saw Dawn Staley play in college at Virginia. She went head-to-head with a tremendous point guard for a team that has had a resurgence in women’s hoops this year – NC State’s Andrea Stinson.
To those of us of that certain age, it’s no surprise that Staley has built a women’s basketball dynasty at South Carolina, which hadn’t been to the Final Four until she arrived in Columbia. South Carolina showed admirable patience while she built up the program. They reached their first Final Four in 2015 and returned two years later to win their first national championship. They were No. 1 by a wide margin in 2020 but didn’t have a chance to win another title due to COVID. Since then, they’ve been to the Final Four four straight times, winning the championship with a 35-2 record in 2022 and losing to LSU in last year’s final after compiling a 36-0 record.
So this is the second straight year the Gamecocks have advanced to the final with an unbeaten record. Not that it’s been easy. LSU gave South Carolina a fight in their regular season and SEC Tournament matchups. Tennessee came within a point of halting their SEC Tournament run in the semifinals. Indiana stuck with them until the final moments of their Sweet 16 matchup.
But when they hit their stride, they’re unbeatable. NC State was within one at halftime but was outscored 29-6 in a dazzling third quarter.
They don’t have a standout star like Caitlin Clark, UConn’s Paige Bueckers or USC’s JuJu Watkins. Kamilla Cardoso is their leading scorer (14.3 per game) and rebounder (9.5), but several players are capable of carrying the scoring load if needed, and Ashlyn Watkins has 34 rebounds in their last two games.
Preamble
Welcome to the biggest women’s basketball game of all time.
If the record-setting ratings didn’t convince you that women’s basketball is commanding the spotlight right now, take a look at last night’s Saturday Night Live, in which Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith (played by Kenan Thompson and Devon Walker) confess that they haven’t even bothered to watch the men’s tournament because the women’s tournament is so good.
So far, the attention has gone to Iowa’s side of the bracket, where Caitlin Clark would merit a massive TV audience even if she wasn’t facing the outsized personalities of LSU coach Kim Mulkey and UConn coach Geno Auriemma.
But today, Clark and the Hawkeyes face South Carolina.
Which has lost exactly once in 25 months – at this stage last year.
Get the popcorn. Settle in. Here we go.
Beau will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s a look at Kim Mulkey’s tournament:
Everything about Kim Mulkey screams LOOK AT ME – from her garish sideline fashion to her in-your-face coaching style to her combative media posture. But perceptions of Mulkey have never shifted as wildly as during this year’s NCAA women’s basketball tournament, where the LSU coach has been under a level of scrutiny unlike any she has endured over her long hoops career.
The rollercoaster ride started late last month, with the 61-year-old dedicating the first of two postgame news conferences to lambasting an imminent Washington Post “hit piece” on her. This, despite the paper spending two years courting her cooperation and giving her two more days to respond to a final list of questions. Mulkey threatened legal action and tarred Kent Babb, the respected Post writer in question, as a two-bit muckraker. (“Not many people are in a position to hold these kinds of journalists accountable, but I am, and I’ll do it,” Mulkey said.) While the aggressive PR defense endeared Mulkey to swathes of conservative-leaning hoops agnostics who are plenty leery of the press already, it had the backfiring effect of providing free advertising for what proved to be a fairly benign profile – a major letdown for readers who were half expecting the Post to report that she had been at the Capitol on January 6, based on the coach’s outburst.
You can read the full article below:
