By Anthony Caruso III | Publisher
The No. 1-seed South Carolina Gamecocks are back atop the women’s college basketball world. They win their third Women’s Basketball Tournament on Sunday.
The Gamecocks defeated No. 2-seed Iowa Hawkeyes 87-75 at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland, Ohio.
Hawkeyes superstar Caitlin Clark fell short of winning the national championship. Clark changed the women’s game and brought so much attention to it.
This was the second consecutive year that Clark and the Hawkeyes were the runner-up. Last year, they were defeated by the LSU Tigers.
Despite the loss, Clark will go down as one of the greatest women’s college basketball players of all time.
South Carolina has won their third Women’s Basketball Tournament National Championship. All of them have come since 2017.
Outside of 2017, they also won in 2022 and this season.
Gamecocks head coach Dawn Staley, who is already the winningest head coach in program history and just completed her 16th season, has turned her program into a national powerhouse. One year ago, they were eliminated by the Hawkeyes in the Final Four.
With the win, the Gamecocks completed the perfect season. South Carolina improved to 109-3 in the past three seasons.
But Staley and her staff had to go to work after the first quarter to save their season.
See, the Hawkeyes scored 27 in the first quarter. Clark led her team with 18 points in the quarter.
The 18 points are the most in any quarter by a player in National Championship game history.
In the final three quarters, Clark was shut down to just 12 additional points. Plus, the Gamecocks held the Hawkeyes to just 19, 13, and 16 in the final three quarters.
Tessa Johnson led the Gamecocks with 19 points. She also had four rebounds, one assist, and one steal.
Johnson was one of four Gamecocks players, who scored in double figures. Kamila Cardoso added 15.
Te-hino Paopao had 14 and Chloe Kitts contributed 11.
The Gamecocks had 37 bench points. Johnson led the bench with the aforementioned 19 points.
Clark led the Hawkeyes with 30 points. She also had eight rebounds and five assists.
There were four Hawkeyes, who scored in double digits. Kate Martin had 16.
Sydney Affolter had 12 and Hannah Stuelke added 11.
The Hawkeyes did not have a single bench point.
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