DALLAS (AP) — Caitlin Clark tossed the shot precocious successful the aerial arsenic the timepiece ticked down, gave a immense shout-out to her adoring fans and past took disconnected connected a gleeful gallop astir the court.
In the biggest matchup of her life, the dazzling constituent defender from Iowa had done it each ― poured successful 41 points to acceptable a grounds for the highest-scoring NCAA Tournament semifinal, ended the cleanable play of South Carolina and, astir importantly, enactment her Hawkeyes into the title game.
Clark overwhelmed the reigning champions with different sensational amusement from commencement to finish, helping Iowa halt the Gamecocks’ 42-game winning streak 77-73 connected Friday nighttime successful the Final Four.
“We had thing to lose. I person each the assurance successful the satellite successful this group, and they judge close backmost successful me, and that’s each you need,” Clark said. ”All we bash is judge successful 1 different and we emotion each different to death, and that’s what a existent squad is. If you privation an illustration of a team, that’s what this is.”
The spectacular inferior became the archetypal women’s subordinate to station back-to-back 40-point performances successful the NCAA Tournament. She present has the Hawkeyes successful a spot they’ve ne'er been successful earlier — 1 triumph distant from a nationalist championship.
They’ll person to bushed different SEC squad to bash that arsenic Iowa (31-6) volition look LSU successful the rubric crippled connected Sunday afternoon. The Tigers beat Virginia Tech successful the different nationalist semifinal.
It’s the Tigers’ archetypal quality successful the rubric crippled arsenic Kim Mulkey became the 2nd manager to instrumentality 2 antithetic teams to the title game.
“I emotion maine immoderate Caitlin Clark,” Iowa manager Lisa Bluder said. “We’ve been talking astir being mission-focused a batch this year, and we had a crippled program and these guys executed truthful well. That is South Carolina we conscionable beat, folks. Amazing.”
Thanks to the riveting play of Clark and the historical twelvemonth by South Carolina, this was 1 of the astir talked astir and highly anticipated matchups successful women’s Final Four history,
The crippled lived up to the hype surrounding it— the champion subordinate vs. the champion squad — overmuch to the delight of the sellout assemblage of implicit 19,000 fans.
“Tonight showed however amusive women’s hoops is,” Clark said. “I’m definite immoderate radical wished this was a bid of 7 games.”
Coach Dawn Staley and South Carolina (36-1) had kept connected winning since taking past year’s title.
“I don’t deliberation we felt unit to triumph the game, we conscionable didn’t perform,” Staley said. “And that hasn’t been america each play long.”
“I don’t deliberation our players felt pressure, immoderate different pressures too wanting to triumph different hoops game,” she said.
This was Iowa’s archetypal quality successful the Final Four successful 30 years. The past clip the Hawkeyes precocious this acold was 1993 nether manager C. Vivian Stringer, whose squad mislaid to Ohio State successful overtime.
Clark wowed the assemblage that included Harper Stribe, a young instrumentality of the squad who has been battling cancer. She was featured successful a astonishment video that informed the Hawkeyes’ prima that she was the AP Player of the Year.
Clark has created rather a disturbance since going to assemblage successful her location state. She led the federation successful scoring doubly and past play had a crippled for the ages, signaling the archetypal 40-point triple-double successful NCAA past to pb the Hawkeyes to the Final Four.
Now she has them connected the doorstep of much history.
Trailing 59-55 entering the 4th quarter, South Carolina scored the archetypal 5 points to instrumentality the lead. Clark answered close backmost with 2 heavy 3-pointers and an assistance to Monika Czinano to springiness the Hawkeyes a 67-62 lead.
South Carolina got wrong 69-68 connected Raven Johnson’s 3-pointer earlier Clark got a bargain for a layup with 3:32 left. Neither squad scored again until prima Aliyah Boston was fouled with 1:37 left. She made the 2nd of 2 escaped throws.
Clark past scored different layup connected the different extremity retired of a timeout to marque it a four-point game. After a layup by Zia Cooke with 58 seconds left, the Hawkeyes ran the timepiece down with McKenna Warnock grabbing a immense violative rebound disconnected a Clark miss with 18 seconds remaining.
Clark deed 2 escaped throws aft South Carolina fouled her with 13.5 seconds left. They were her 38th and 39th point, moving her past Nneka Ogwumike for the astir successful a Final Four semifinal game.
After a putback by Johnson with 9.9 seconds near got the Gamecocks wrong 75-73, Clark sealed the crippled with 2 much escaped throws.
The nonaccomplishment ended a tremendous play for the defending champion Gamecocks, who were trying to go the 10th squad to spell done a play unbeaten.
“It was physical. You’ve got to springiness them a batch of credit,” Clark said. “They’re a tremendous team, they’ve had a tremendous year, evidently truthful well-coached.”
Cooke led the Gamecocks with 24 points. Slowed by foul trouble, Boston had conscionable 8 points and 10 rebounds arsenic the Hawkeyes packed the paint, brazenly daring South Carolina to sprout from the outside. The defence seemed to bamboozle the Gamecocks, who finished 4 for 20 from down the 3-point line. They couldn’t instrumentality vantage of their 49-25 rebounding borderline that included 26 violative boards.
1,000-POINT CLUB
Clark became the sixth subordinate to people implicit 1,000 points successful a season. She joined erstwhile Hawkeyes prima Megan Gustafson, breaking her schoolhouse people of 1,001. Villanova’s Maddy Siegrist besides reached that milestone this season. Kelsey Plum, Jackie Stiles and Odyssey Sims were the others to bash it.
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More AP sum of March Madness: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness and https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25
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