How Caitlin Clark, Iowa beat Paige Bueckers, UConn in Women’s Final Four

CLEVELAND — Leave it to the softest-spoken player on the floor to take the biggest hit and woof the loudest just blocks from a location they call the Dawg Pound.

With her team leading by a point, Iowa guard Gabbie Marshall was on the receiving end of a moving screen that would have qualified as a football blind-side block. It came with 3.1 seconds left and took possession away from UConn. The Hawkeyes hit a free throw, ran out the clock and moved into their second straight national championship game with a 71-69 win Friday night, when they’ll face South Carolina for the title.

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CLEVELAND — In the almost 40 years that Geno Auriemma has been UConn’s head coach, he can remember exactly two instances when the Huskies went on a postseason run that defied all logic.

The first was in 1991 when UConn made its first Final Four.

“There was absolutely no way to predict or explain how that happened,” Auriemma said. “And yet it was the beginning of our program as it exists today.”

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CLEVELAND — The ovations for Caitlin Clark began as soon as she jogged onto the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse court for warm-ups. They continued into pregame introductions, when the sound of Clark’s name, not surprisingly, received the loudest roar of any player.

Facing UConn in the national semifinal, Clark scored on Iowa’s first possession. Perhaps a masterclass, similar to the one Clark logged against LSU with nine 3-pointers, would follow? Instead, Clark went the next 14 minutes without making another basket.

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CLEVELAND — This was the way it always had to end: Iowa versus South Carolina. Caitlin Clark’s final chance at a national title against the undefeated Gamecocks, a rematch of the epic 2023 Final Four clash that catapulted Clark into superstardom.

South Carolina once again enters as the No. 1 overall seed, unbeaten this season and attempting to complete the 10th undefeated campaign in NCAA women’s history. Just like in 2022-23, the Gamecocks boast the best defensive rating in the country, per Her Hoop Stats, and the Hawkeyes have the best offense. The country’s deepest team faces the national player of the year for all the marbles.

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Iowa is headed to the national title game for the second straight year and will play South Carolina on Sunday afternoon.

In Friday night’s Final Four, UConn trailed Iowa 70-64 with 2:14 to play, a chance at returning to the national title game to face South Carolina dwindling. But the Huskies rallied with two stops and two scores. When KK Arnold stole the ball with nine seconds to play, UConn was down just one with a shot for the win.

Instead, the Huskies never took that shot. After a UConn timeout, Aaliyah Edwards set a pick on the wing for Paige Bueckers to fly off and potentially take the game-winning jumper, but Edwards was whistled for a moving screen with 3.9 seconds left. The turnover gave the Hawkeyes the ball back on their side of the court, and the Huskies would never regain possession, losing 71-69.

“I wasn’t given an explanation,” Edwards said after the loss. “There was no real time to get an explanation. From my point of view, it was pretty clean.

Geno Auriemma: “The expectations at Uconn are what they are because we created them. … We’ve put that on ourselves now for the last 30 years.”

Says what “pisses me off” is people thinking his program is “unworthy” when they don’t win it all. “That seems to be the big story.”

“Stop talking about us when we don’t win a national championship. But again, that’s the world we created. We might not win a national championship, but we’re right there when it’s usually decided. And that’s what matters.”

Geno Auriemma: “I just know there were three or four of them called on us and not any called on them. So I guess we’ve just got to get better at not setting illegal screens.”

Gabbie Marshall, in the locker room, said she felt Aliyah Edwards move right away when she hit the screen. Said she was riding Buecker's hip so that if Edwards did set a screen she had to move to connect.

Bueckers is emotional. “This year especially from my perspective you just appreciate it as it goes along. .. Everybody saw it. The heart, the joy, the passion that we played with, we just love each other. … This season meant everything to us. Against all odds.”

Bueckers: “The standard at Uconn is national championship so it’s always disappointing. But I know we’ll reflect after this and get better from here.”

For what it’s worth: Ice Brady and KK Arnold both said in the locker room they disagreed with the call. Feels like Edwards and Bueckers have kept it more vague, but the younger Huskies voiced their opinions. Arnold said the call should have never happened.

Aaliyah Edwards: “From my point of view, it was pretty clean.” Says she did not get an explanation.

Bueckers: “We had a play. I thought we were gonna run it. I thought we executed it well. … the whistle blew. … Not one single play wins a basketball game or loses a basketball game.”

Edwards, asked about officiating: “You can’t really control what happens with the refs and their decision making.”

South Carolina is a 6.5-point favorite to win the 2024 Women’s NCAA Tournament championship game against Iowa at 3 p.m. ET Sunday from Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland. Iowa beat South Carolina 77-73 in last year’s national semifinal to end South Carolina’s perfect season. Caitlin Clark scored 41 points in that upset.

Sunday’s showdown guarantees either South Carolina’s third national title (2017, 2022) or Iowa’s first national title. Iowa lost to LSU in last year’s championship game.

The Gamecocks (37-0) look to become the 10th Division I women’s basketball team to go undefeated and win the national title, and the first since the 2015-16 UConn Huskies went 38-0 and won their fourth straight national title. That UConn team only had one win by less than 10 points all season. South Carolina has won six games by less than 10 points this season, including a tight 79-75 win against Indiana in the Sweet 16.

This was just the second time all season that Caitlin Clark was not Iowa’s leading scorer.