The undefeated South Carolina Gamecocks defeated Iowa on Sunday, 87-75. at the NCAA women’s championship.
Gamecocks’ victory over Caitlin Clark’s last game at Iowa. In February, Clark became the all-time NCAA Division I scoring leader, breaking the late Pete Maravich’s 54-year-old record. Clark scored 30 points on Sunday.
South Carolina was 37-0 entering Sunday’s game, becoming the first undefeated champion since UConn in 2016. Sunday marked its second national championship in three years and the third in school history, according to CBS Sports.
With Dawn Staley leading a relentless attack from the wing, the Gamecocks became the 10th Division I team to go a season without a loss. And they accomplished the feat after losing all five starters from last season’s team that lost to Clark’s team in the national semifinals.
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Clark did everything he could to lead the Hawkeyes to their first championship. He scored 30 points, including a championship-high 18 in the first quarter. She will go down as one of the greatest players in NCAA history. She rewrote the record book at Iowa (34-5), finishing as the leading career scorer in NCAA Division I history with 3,951 career points.
He hopes his legacy won’t be defined by coming up short in two NCAA championship games, but rather by the millions of new fans he helped bring to the game and the countless girls and boys he inspired.
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South Carolina has won three titles in the last eight years, including two of the last three, to claim to be the last dynasty in women’s basketball. Staley became the fifth coach to win three national championships, joining Geno Auriemma, Pat Summitt, Kim Mulkey and Tara VanDerveer. The Gamecocks, who have won 109 of their last 112 games, became the first team since UConn in 2016 to go undefeated. South Carolina had a couple of scares throughout the season, but always found a way to win.
With most of the team returning next year except for star center Kamilla Cardoso, Staley’s team is in a good position to keep this streak going. Tessa Johnson led South Carolina with 19 points. Cardoso scored 15 points and 17 rebounds.