The 2024 NCAA Division 1 Women’s Basketball Tournament brought a lot of positive attention to women’s college basketball and allowed many players and teams to shine, especially Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes. Iowa, a number one seed in the tournament, was led to the championship game by Clark, their star player who recently broke the record for most career points in NCAA Division 1 Women’s Basketball.
Iowa cruised through the first 3 rounds of the tournament by defeating #16 Holy Cross 91-65 in the First Round, #8 West Virginia 64-54 in the Second Round, and #5 Colorado 89-68 in the Sweet 16.
Once they got to the Elite 8, however, they faced a difficult opponent, Angel Reese and the LSU Tigers. This was a highly anticipated matchup since it was a rematch of last year’s championship game where LSU took down Iowa.
The first half was close as the score at halftime was tied 45-45 which was the highest scoring first half of the 2024 NCAA tournament. Clark was the highest scorer out of both teams with 19 points and Angel Reese led LSU with 13. Early in the third quarter, the Hawkeyes went on a 15-3 run but LSU closed the gap by scoring 6 straight points near the end of the third to cut Iowa’s lead to 7.
Reese fouled out with 1 minute and 45 seconds left in the game and LSU could not surpass Iowa’s lead. They did fight to the end to make the score a closer 94-87 despite Iowa’s 13 point lead early in the second half. Caitlin Clark finished the game for Iowa with an outstanding 41 points. Kate Martin added 21 and Sydney Affolter had 16 to contribute to Iowa’s victory.
Iowa then advanced to the Final Four where they faced the 3 seeded UConn Huskies.
The UConn Huskies came out with a strong defense in the first half. Clark was held to just 6 points in the first half with 0 made three point shots. Her defender, Nika Muhl of UConn did not give her much space to make shots from behind the three point line. Other members of the Iowa team were able to step up such as Sydney Affolter who scored 6 points of Iowa’s 10-4 run to end the half. UConn led 32-26 at halftime.
In the third quarter, Gabbie Marshall stepped up to score a three point shot for Iowa, then soon after Clark made her first 3 pointer of the game. Bueckers paced UConn with 7 points in the first 5 minutes of the quarter. At the end of the third, the score was tied at 51. Stuelke was the star for Iowa at that point with 19 points. With 39 seconds left, Muhl had a steal and three point field goal for the Huskies making the score Iowa 70 UConn 69. With 4 seconds left, UConn had possession with a chance to score but an offensive foul was called on UConn, resulting in a turnover. Iowa was able to escape with a 71-69 victory with the help of Stuelke’s 23 points and Clark’s 21 points.
Clark and the Hawkeyes then moved on to the National Championship game where they faced the undefeated South Carolina Gamecocks.
Iowa started off strong on a 10-0 run but South Carolina caught up and the game was tied 5 times throughout the first half. USC’s bench was crucial as non-starters scored 22 of the team’s 49 points prior to half time. Clark had 18 points in the first 10 minutes but the USC defense held her to just 3 points in the second and 4 in the third. USC outscored Iowa in both the second and third quarters but an 8-0 run by Iowa’s offense cut the Gamecocks lead to 5 points (80-75) in the fourth. South Carolina ultimately won with a final score of 87-75 making them National Champions.
2024 turned out to be a great year for women’s basketball as viewership and attendance at games are on the rise. This is likely thanks to the stars of the game such as Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, LSU’s Angel Reese, South Carolina’s Camila Cardoso, and Stanford’s Cameron Brink. All four of those players have declared for the 2024 WNBA Draft and many fans are excited to see how they will impact the game in their professional careers.
