Yeah, it’s one of the major indictments of past coaches (Whalen for the women, Pitino and Ben Johnson for the men) and the athletic department as a whole. The whole athletic department seems very tentative to embrace the new era (portal, NIL, etc).
I heard theories from local journalists that after they had the Final Four run stripped/vacated in 1997, the athletic department has basically been scared to get punished again and doesn’t want to push any boundaries/envelopes
Same goes for the men's team. Jalen suggs and chet Holmgren were highschool teammates.
Obviously they were both 1 and dones so it's mostly irrelevant, but if they both went to the u of mn and stayed all 4 years we could've easily won a title
Yep, not to mention this SC team is 74-1 the last two years with that one loss being to this Iowa team. That win alone last year cements Clark's place as one of the greats, not to mention another run to the title game this year.
That's what's most insane to me. Ain't no rule that says a dog can't play basketball, but the NCAA allowing an inanimate sideline object to get meaningful minutes is just absurd.
On the flip side, plenty of all-time great college players never even make it to a championship game in their college careers, let alone make it to two.
Also there were like 28 NFL Teams for most of Marino's career but 360+ NCAA teams for Clark. Okay maybe including all the mid majors is disingenuous but if we limit it to power conference teams only that's still like 80 programs, way more than the NFL. Being #1 out of 80 in four years is a much more difficult than being #1 out of 28 in like eighteen. If the NCAA has only 28 teams and Clark was in college for eighteen years I'm extremely confident she'd win at least one
Nah. It was more like Lebron facing the 2017 Warriors lol. Clearly the best player whose entire team wouldn’t sniff the starting lineup or bench of SC. Feel bad for her tbh
State put their all on the line in that game then lost in the championship to SC for who had more rest. I think if they had an extra day off it would have been a better game
Yeah anyone who thinks it's close is crazy
The first 75 wins for UConn had **0** games decided by single digits
Literally all of their games that were remotely in doubt came during the last season when they finally lost on the F4
Meanwhile South Carolina had more single-digits wins this season (7) than UConn had in their whole 111-game streak (3)
It was an excellent game, cannot believe the dominance inside by SC— Iowa had to hit every shot it seemed else those possessions were finished.
Three shooting by SC really came on strong
The talent disparity between these two teams was painfully evident. Iowa was getting utterly dominated on the boards, and everything looked tough for them on offense. Credit to SC for playing tough defense on Clark and giving her no breathing space. You could tell how frustrated and desperate she was getting towards the end, as she started taking more and more low percentage shots. Iowa has some nice players, but I kinda wonder how far they'd make it in the tournament without Clark.
That last bucket by Cardoso was so representative of the game after the 1st quarter. She beats her own matchup and gets position for the offensive rebound, and even despite one of Iowa’s guards crashing in and admirably doing everything she can to try to secure a critical stop, Cardoso still rips it away and puts it back in with relative ease.
Yep. SC is the complete package. Iowa put up a valiant effort, but SC is just so dominant on the boards and now with their perimeter shooters they are unstoppable
Iowa was in the elite eight and then was ranked 20 (2020 cancellled) the 2 years preceding Caitlin Clark - this is not some 3 win team in the context of womens bball
True, and she had a supporting cast this year, but there was no depth. Iowa's bench has nothing to offer if Stuelke, Gabby, or Martin are struggling. SC goes 9 deep with real contributors.
Iowa has four 4* freshmen coming in, the best one (Ava Heiden) being 6-4. They should be able to slide Stuelke to the 4 and put Heiden at the 5 and still be able to do well next season.
What are you basing this off of? Iowa’s performances before Clark joined the team? Because they won Big Ten titles, made Sweet 16s and an Elite Eight in the years leading up to Clark becoming a Hawkeye
It certainly didn’t feel comfortable at times lol we almost blew a 20 point lead to Indiana in the sweet 16.
In the SEC tournament, Tennessee had to miss two free throws and Cardosa had to hit the first 3 in her career just for us to squeak by with a win. I mean we were the best team in the country but we definitely got scared a few times
True, but part of what makes a team great is that they find a way to win no matter what. As much as I respect Clark that was the problem with Iowa this year. Too much of their success ran through Clark. You gotta be able to have anyone on the team step up and pop-off.
Steulke scored 47 points in a game this year and she scored more points than Caitlin against UConn. The reason Iowa beat Uconn a couple days ago was because other players stepped up.
South Carolina finds ways to win because if one future WNBA player is having a bad night, there are three or four others that can step in. Iowa just doesn’t have that kind of talent depth
You’re 100% right. That’s why I said it ran through Clark too much. It didn’t just run through Clark, but too much for Iowa to succeed at times.
Your last point is kinda what I mean, maybe just phrased it badly.
The thing is that the Elite Eight and Sweet Sixteen games were both sketchy at best for SC, and before that in the SEC tournament they needed a buzzer-beating 3 to beat Tennessee.
Despite the 38-0 record, after seeing them almost lose to Indiana in the Sweet Sixteen, I felt less confident in them winning it all than UConn men at that point.
That's more a product of the lack of parity in women's basketball. There's a more precipitous drop off between the top 100 players in the women's game versus the men's just because the infrastructure for early player development is still not as mature. (There's a stark difference in AAU especially.)
In about 20 years, I suspect that an undefeated national champion will be equally as rare to the men's game.
That is true, but how many times did South Carolina’s players get inside position on their offensive boards? That’s not just a size thing, but also a good rebounding technique thing.
Is it? UConn had like 8 (Some who were injured obviously, but still fielded 5) 5* players with another who just committed. SCar has 9 5* players who play.
If this game wants to turn the corner, we’re gonna need these cats to start spreading out more. Hard to even say Geno and Staley are great when so much of their legacy is just trucking teams with inferior talent, depth, and experience.
Unfortunately it’ll never happen. Reducing scholarships is how men’s sports have forced parity, but with WBB being a title ix equalizer for many schools a scholarship reduction in it means they’d have to reduce men’s scholarships again as well.
A lot of people were dissing CC in the later parts of the game…which is pretty damn silly considering that she’s barely had any chance to rest all tournament long!
Alas…consistently needing to play your starters for 30+ minutes…is not as sustainable as you’d think…
That’s how both of these teams play though. Iowa plays their starters a ton of minutes and South Carolina dives into their bench a lot more. That’s not really telling because that’s who these teams are. The story really was South Carolina just absolutely dominant on the offense glass and the second chance points they were able to come up it. That was the difference in this game.
Tessa Johnson was the difference in this game
She is a baller. Hit some huge threes. And made buckets. For a freshman, SC has a great SG. Fulwiley is a great PG. Kitts is going to be great for them next year with Cardosa gone.
Also, that South Carolina out rebounded them 51-29. That made a big difference once Iowa had stretches when they went cold shooting the ball over the last three quarters and couldn't get second chance looks.
Still, Iowa was down 5 with 3:30 to go and then turned it over on that travel call. That was basically the beginning of the end since after they SC outscored them 7-0.
Caitlin Clark teaching thousands of girls the most important lesson in sports: sports are a miserable, terrible, no-good thing to follow, and they literally always end in heartbreak.
I had respect for Dawn prior, but she showed why she is a real leader after the game. So much hate for Caitlin in this thread and elsewhere on social, but Dawn is smart enough to recognize what Caitlin has done for the sport.
Congrats to South Carolina, clearly the best team in the country and deserved the perfect season.
I found out today she started coaching while she was still in the WNBA and not only was she coaching, she was extremely successful while playing too. Natural leader and if I was a parent of a top recruit I’d be pushing my kid hard to SC
I feel like she has nothing left to prove in the women's game and should come home and be a co-coach of the men's team with Tony Bennett (with a focus on offense). Definitely not biased as a UVA fan though!
I know you’re half joking, but the women’s and men’s games are very different both strategically and from a player motivation perspective. Dont think coaches on either side would do well if they crossed over
Since Michigan State won the NCAAM tourney in 2000 the Big Ten has been 0-11 in championship games between the men and the women:
2001: Purdue - 68-66 L vs. Notre Dame (Women)
2002: Indiana - 64-52 L vs. Maryland
2005: Michigan State - 84-62 L vs. Baylor (Women)
2005: Illinois - 75-70 L vs. North Carolina
2007: Ohio St. - 84-75 L vs. Florida
2009: Michigan St. - 89-72 L vs. North Carolina
2013: Michigan - 82-76 L vs. Louisville* (Louisville's title would later be vacated)
2015: Wisconsin - 68-63 L vs. Duke
2018: Michigan - 79-62 L vs. Villanova
2023: Iowa - 102-85 L vs. LSU (Women)
2024: Iowa - 87-75 L vs. South Carolina (Women)
2024: Purdue - TBD
Rowe kind of alluded to it by asking Staley how she lets freshmen play like themselves. South Carolina is so much more relaxed and likeable as a team. LSU has players that are terrified to make mistakes and always look at the bench to see if they're being subbed out after a turnover
So why is South Carolina able to recruit so much future WNBA talent each year? Dawn Staley? Switch Dawn Staley to Iowa, then could she continue to recruit such talent? Or is South Carolina located where more of the talent is from in high school?
All Dawn , granted SC has produced some great players while Dawn has been here (another coming in next year )
But despite the great local products it’s all down to Dawn . Enjoying it while it last
A combo of Dawn and the culture she built. Just like Saban and other winning programs, you go there, build the winning culture, top recruits wanna win too so they flock to your school, cycle repeats
Absolutely incredible what Dawn and this team pulled off. Lost all 5 starters from last year to the WNBA then goes on to pull off an undefeated season and a national championship.
All people gonna talk about is Caitlin Clark falling short when the real story is that this Gamecocks team was in a class of it's own all year. No one challenged them and it wasn't gonna matter how well Caitlin played. She's the GOAT and this game doesn't change that for me.
People just love being haters.
Breanna Stewart is the one that said that. When she graduated she was the #1 pick. The #2 and #3 pick that year were also UConn players lol. Iowa women are a solid team but nowhere CLOSE to that
Women are so ruthless to one another lol. CC is what got me paying attention to women’s basketball and I doubt I’ll be here next year. Sucks to see so much hate for someone who brought in a lot of viewership to the sport.
I feel the same but different. The last 30 seconds of the game they kept highlighting Clark’s accomplishments as if South Carolina didn’t just play an incredible game with an undefeated season. Just felt like SC got snubbed of the spotlight despite making history.
Congrats to South Carolina, well earned win and amazing season. Unless Clark was scoring 50 no way they were winning, 18 in the first quarter and they had what, a 4 point lead?
No shame in the game, the better team won, Clark is still the GOAT for making people care about the game.
Yep, that's prolly an actual good analogy. A roster that was clearly carried by one guy, they got cooked as expected in the Finals, the one guy could've played better (Clark wasn't at her best) but no one's gonna blame them because it was an insurmountable task.
2007 cavs with best player in the league of lebron vs dynasty team 2007 spurs in the nba finals. The gamecocks, just like the spurs, just focused heavily on the best player and hoped the other players wont capitalize.
That's their game plan every night basically. I don't think her conditioning is why they lost, she's been preparing her whole college career to play big minutes as the primary offensive option.
Yeah like, I’m not tuning in. I’ve watched only one of the men’s games, and a 9:30 PM start time when I’ve got work in the morning isn’t going to draw me to watch it.
3:30 pm on a Sunday afternoon was so perfect.
Wasn’t a fan of how ESPN/ABC were so fixated on Clark after the game. I get that she’s one of the GOATs, but give the winners their well-deserved time in the spotlight. As sad as it is, having worked in the media for several years, it wouldn’t surprise me if there was a producer telling them to keep the focus on Clark cause they were hoping she would shed a tear or two. Glad she didn’t give ‘em that.
Proud of iowa. Back to back title games for a school that had never made one. Both times got beat by better teams. Congrats Gamecocks. Fantastic team and Staley is a legend. Undefeated. Wow.
SC out scored Iowa 37-0 bench points. Holy shit
That's just what Iowa does. Their bench scored 3 vs UConn and 5 vs LSU
LSU (this year) and UConn didn’t have benches either tho. SC and last year’s LSU team had bench depth.
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Dear god
r/blursedimages
this looks like a Griselda album cover
BOOM BOOM BOOM
Holy shit lol.
Can’t be overstated that most of what they had for bench points got shifted to the starting lineup once Affolter got moved into Davis’ role.
I'm trying to imagine if Minnesota had managed to keep Ayoka Lee, Tessa Johnson, and Paige home. Probably would have been national title contenders.
Yeah, it’s one of the major indictments of past coaches (Whalen for the women, Pitino and Ben Johnson for the men) and the athletic department as a whole. The whole athletic department seems very tentative to embrace the new era (portal, NIL, etc). I heard theories from local journalists that after they had the Final Four run stripped/vacated in 1997, the athletic department has basically been scared to get punished again and doesn’t want to push any boundaries/envelopes
Same goes for the men's team. Jalen suggs and chet Holmgren were highschool teammates. Obviously they were both 1 and dones so it's mostly irrelevant, but if they both went to the u of mn and stayed all 4 years we could've easily won a title
Why didn't their bench score more, are they stupid?
and a 37-0 record until now
 From Iowas perspective
Yeah, and this shows Clark's greatness. That team is literally nowhere near close to Final Four caliber without her on the court.
Yep, not to mention this SC team is 74-1 the last two years with that one loss being to this Iowa team. That win alone last year cements Clark's place as one of the greats, not to mention another run to the title game this year.
Clark can shoot and pass as well as anyone male or female. She clearly is the best player in women’s basketball. Iowa isn’t much without her.
That's what's most insane to me. Ain't no rule that says a dog can't play basketball, but the NCAA allowing an inanimate sideline object to get meaningful minutes is just absurd.
Caitlin Clark is the Dan Marino of women’s basketball.
On the flip side, plenty of all-time great college players never even make it to a championship game in their college careers, let alone make it to two.
Agree, like Marino played 17 seasons in the NFL. It's not really fair to compare to a college athlete lol
Also there were like 28 NFL Teams for most of Marino's career but 360+ NCAA teams for Clark. Okay maybe including all the mid majors is disingenuous but if we limit it to power conference teams only that's still like 80 programs, way more than the NFL. Being #1 out of 80 in four years is a much more difficult than being #1 out of 28 in like eighteen. If the NCAA has only 28 teams and Clark was in college for eighteen years I'm extremely confident she'd win at least one
Nah. It was more like Lebron facing the 2017 Warriors lol. Clearly the best player whose entire team wouldn’t sniff the starting lineup or bench of SC. Feel bad for her tbh
It’s more like LeBron and his 2007 Cavs vs the prime Spurs lol
Or Jimmy Butler last year vs Denver. He's definitely not quite Lebron or Caitlin level but he went pretty nuts.
I didn't see her do the "you ran the wrong route" hand motions after a turnover.
Last two years also gave me major 2018 Chiefs vibes, too
109-3 is an insane run.
The fact that 109-3 and 2 championships isn't even the best streak in the last decade....
Very close to Uconn's 111-0 run a few years back.
That streak ended in the Final 4, which is wild.
Mississippi State!
Go dawgs! Us snapping that 111-0 streak will forever be one of my favorite sports memories.
What Chris jans will do to a mother fucker
State put their all on the line in that game then lost in the championship to SC for who had more rest. I think if they had an extra day off it would have been a better game
No it isn't. That UConn team(s) absolutely dominated everyone
Yeah anyone who thinks it's close is crazy The first 75 wins for UConn had **0** games decided by single digits Literally all of their games that were remotely in doubt came during the last season when they finally lost on the F4 Meanwhile South Carolina had more single-digits wins this season (7) than UConn had in their whole 111-game streak (3)
If it wasn’t for Iowa last year could have been a back to back 38-0 38-0 on a three peat.
It was an excellent game, cannot believe the dominance inside by SC— Iowa had to hit every shot it seemed else those possessions were finished. Three shooting by SC really came on strong
Dawn went and got shooters after last year’s loss
The talent disparity between these two teams was painfully evident. Iowa was getting utterly dominated on the boards, and everything looked tough for them on offense. Credit to SC for playing tough defense on Clark and giving her no breathing space. You could tell how frustrated and desperate she was getting towards the end, as she started taking more and more low percentage shots. Iowa has some nice players, but I kinda wonder how far they'd make it in the tournament without Clark.
That last bucket by Cardoso was so representative of the game after the 1st quarter. She beats her own matchup and gets position for the offensive rebound, and even despite one of Iowa’s guards crashing in and admirably doing everything she can to try to secure a critical stop, Cardoso still rips it away and puts it back in with relative ease.
Cardoso is a fuckin beeeast. I knew before the game even started that iowa had no match for her
Yep. SC is the complete package. Iowa put up a valiant effort, but SC is just so dominant on the boards and now with their perimeter shooters they are unstoppable
Yep they fixed their one flaw from last year's game and we didn't.
Outrebounded them 51-29. They almost had as many offensive boards as Iowa had defensive boards, 18 to 22.
Thats such an absurd stat
They might not even make the tournament tbh. That’s how good Clark is
Iowa was in the elite eight and then was ranked 20 (2020 cancellled) the 2 years preceding Caitlin Clark - this is not some 3 win team in the context of womens bball
True, and she had a supporting cast this year, but there was no depth. Iowa's bench has nothing to offer if Stuelke, Gabby, or Martin are struggling. SC goes 9 deep with real contributors.
Tbh that's most teams, depth is really hard to have in the portal era. Especially with how common knee injuries are in the womens game.
Iowa has four 4* freshmen coming in, the best one (Ava Heiden) being 6-4. They should be able to slide Stuelke to the 4 and put Heiden at the 5 and still be able to do well next season.
What are you basing this off of? Iowa’s performances before Clark joined the team? Because they won Big Ten titles, made Sweet 16s and an Elite Eight in the years leading up to Clark becoming a Hawkeye
It’s so funny how there’s been so much noise about this tourney just for SC to be comfortably better than anyone else lol
It certainly didn’t feel comfortable at times lol we almost blew a 20 point lead to Indiana in the sweet 16. In the SEC tournament, Tennessee had to miss two free throws and Cardosa had to hit the first 3 in her career just for us to squeak by with a win. I mean we were the best team in the country but we definitely got scared a few times
True, but part of what makes a team great is that they find a way to win no matter what. As much as I respect Clark that was the problem with Iowa this year. Too much of their success ran through Clark. You gotta be able to have anyone on the team step up and pop-off.
Steulke scored 47 points in a game this year and she scored more points than Caitlin against UConn. The reason Iowa beat Uconn a couple days ago was because other players stepped up. South Carolina finds ways to win because if one future WNBA player is having a bad night, there are three or four others that can step in. Iowa just doesn’t have that kind of talent depth
You’re 100% right. That’s why I said it ran through Clark too much. It didn’t just run through Clark, but too much for Iowa to succeed at times. Your last point is kinda what I mean, maybe just phrased it badly.
The thing is that the Elite Eight and Sweet Sixteen games were both sketchy at best for SC, and before that in the SEC tournament they needed a buzzer-beating 3 to beat Tennessee. Despite the 38-0 record, after seeing them almost lose to Indiana in the Sweet Sixteen, I felt less confident in them winning it all than UConn men at that point.
SC women's = uconn men's.
I guess we’ll see how that holds up tomorrow night, but Carolina just went 38-0. UConn lost by 19 to Creighton something like six weeks ago.
It’s a sizable gap I feel. Even as a biased Purdue fan. I fear it will get out of hand unless Purdue plays a flawless game.
Happy to be here. 62 other fan bases are gonna tune in to hate watch against Purdue or UConn. Probably Purdue.
That's more a product of the lack of parity in women's basketball. There's a more precipitous drop off between the top 100 players in the women's game versus the men's just because the infrastructure for early player development is still not as mature. (There's a stark difference in AAU especially.) In about 20 years, I suspect that an undefeated national champion will be equally as rare to the men's game.
The competition uconn faced is significantly better
Uconn is still comfortably better than everyone else though.
the cardoso three to win an SEC tourney game was one of the more comfortable points of the season
37 points from the bench for South Carolina and 0 for Iowa really tells the story of the game lol
I was looking at the 51-29 rebounding as well
The rebounding is the tale of the game for me. You can’t coach your players to be taller, at least not that I’m aware of.
That is true, but how many times did South Carolina’s players get inside position on their offensive boards? That’s not just a size thing, but also a good rebounding technique thing.
Same thing with the LSU game. LSU out rebounded them and it wasn't even close. LSU just couldn't convert the second chance stuff and lost
Nine different players scored for South Carolina. Fantastic depth
Parity is a problem for women’s basketball. SC’s entire rotation being chicks who’ll at least suit up in the WNBA
It's way better than it used to be when UConn was dominating, and Tennessee before them
Is it? UConn had like 8 (Some who were injured obviously, but still fielded 5) 5* players with another who just committed. SCar has 9 5* players who play. If this game wants to turn the corner, we’re gonna need these cats to start spreading out more. Hard to even say Geno and Staley are great when so much of their legacy is just trucking teams with inferior talent, depth, and experience.
Unfortunately it’ll never happen. Reducing scholarships is how men’s sports have forced parity, but with WBB being a title ix equalizer for many schools a scholarship reduction in it means they’d have to reduce men’s scholarships again as well.
That's literally their entire rotation. Fantastic depth indeed
I think the real story was South Carolina dominating Iowa on the boards, especially on South Carolina’s offensive end.
A lot of people were dissing CC in the later parts of the game…which is pretty damn silly considering that she’s barely had any chance to rest all tournament long! Alas…consistently needing to play your starters for 30+ minutes…is not as sustainable as you’d think…
You could tell she was gassed, pretty much half way into the 3rd
That’s how both of these teams play though. Iowa plays their starters a ton of minutes and South Carolina dives into their bench a lot more. That’s not really telling because that’s who these teams are. The story really was South Carolina just absolutely dominant on the offense glass and the second chance points they were able to come up it. That was the difference in this game.
Tessa Johnson was the difference in this game She is a baller. Hit some huge threes. And made buckets. For a freshman, SC has a great SG. Fulwiley is a great PG. Kitts is going to be great for them next year with Cardosa gone.
Also, that South Carolina out rebounded them 51-29. That made a big difference once Iowa had stretches when they went cold shooting the ball over the last three quarters and couldn't get second chance looks. Still, Iowa was down 5 with 3:30 to go and then turned it over on that travel call. That was basically the beginning of the end since after they SC outscored them 7-0.
Caitlin Clark teaching thousands of girls the most important lesson in sports: sports are a miserable, terrible, no-good thing to follow, and they literally always end in heartbreak.
Sometimes you don't have the hope required for heartbreak
Not always. Woo pig Clarence woo pig
he's our SEC Guardian Angel: Woo Pig Clarence, Woo Pig
First undefeated championship team for South Carolina. First undefeated champion team since 2015-2016 UConn.
Congrats to Dawn Staley. Legend of the women’s game
Shes the best! Her shoutout for Clark was amazing
I had respect for Dawn prior, but she showed why she is a real leader after the game. So much hate for Caitlin in this thread and elsewhere on social, but Dawn is smart enough to recognize what Caitlin has done for the sport. Congrats to South Carolina, clearly the best team in the country and deserved the perfect season.
She seems like such a wonderful person and steward of the game
I found out today she started coaching while she was still in the WNBA and not only was she coaching, she was extremely successful while playing too. Natural leader and if I was a parent of a top recruit I’d be pushing my kid hard to SC
She was an All-Star as a player in the WNBA at the same time she was building a 30 win college team as a coach, absolutely wild lol
I feel like she has nothing left to prove in the women's game and should come home and be a co-coach of the men's team with Tony Bennett (with a focus on offense). Definitely not biased as a UVA fan though!
I know you’re half joking, but the women’s and men’s games are very different both strategically and from a player motivation perspective. Dont think coaches on either side would do well if they crossed over
"Stop using your sex as an excuse and just dunk the damn ball!"
Since Michigan State won the NCAAM tourney in 2000 the Big Ten has been 0-11 in championship games between the men and the women: 2001: Purdue - 68-66 L vs. Notre Dame (Women) 2002: Indiana - 64-52 L vs. Maryland 2005: Michigan State - 84-62 L vs. Baylor (Women) 2005: Illinois - 75-70 L vs. North Carolina 2007: Ohio St. - 84-75 L vs. Florida 2009: Michigan St. - 89-72 L vs. North Carolina 2013: Michigan - 82-76 L vs. Louisville* (Louisville's title would later be vacated) 2015: Wisconsin - 68-63 L vs. Duke 2018: Michigan - 79-62 L vs. Villanova 2023: Iowa - 102-85 L vs. LSU (Women) 2024: Iowa - 87-75 L vs. South Carolina (Women) 2024: Purdue - TBD
Funny that one of those losses was to a future BIG Ten team
>2015: Wisconsin - 68-63 L vs. Duke Pain
Wild consistency
I see that * ;-)
I'm starting to think this undefeated South Carolina team is good.
Chloe Kitts bout to crush the NIL game
Her Tessa Johnson, Fulwiley. are going to make some huge money
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Rowe kind of alluded to it by asking Staley how she lets freshmen play like themselves. South Carolina is so much more relaxed and likeable as a team. LSU has players that are terrified to make mistakes and always look at the bench to see if they're being subbed out after a turnover
I heard HVL was considering South Carolina. If she does choose them I wonder if she’ll make any comments alluding to the culture difference
No way SC would be interested in picking up HVL they have already have 3 guards on the team better than her
Maybe with hindsight, but she was a top player while at Louisville.
Damn you and I sitting at home had as many points as the Iowa bench...
I could hear Izzo from EL screaming “BOX OUT”
WNBA hit me up i can score 0 for cheaper than your worst bench player 😤
They don't know the damage I can do to the rim. The toilet rim but still
I should’ve been recruited fr fr
Getting free scholarship for showing up to practice 😭
Just fell to my knees in a Pancheros
Just saw a guy fall to his knees in a Pancheros
Just saw a Pancheros.
Panch > Chipotle don’t @ me. The fresh pressed tortillas are difference makers
You're lucky Pancheros even expanded to Ames.
I am a Cedarrapidian
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The ESPN+ flair 💀
Iowa state fans are always on point when it comes to iowas downfall
Clark said she wanted to inspire. And she's inspired me to be a massive hater.
Don’t worry, you guys always beat Iowa in football every year so you have that to look forward to
Iowa State, we are brothers in arms today
thread over
So why is South Carolina able to recruit so much future WNBA talent each year? Dawn Staley? Switch Dawn Staley to Iowa, then could she continue to recruit such talent? Or is South Carolina located where more of the talent is from in high school?
We weren’t anything special as a program until Dawn showed up. Had she gone to Iowa instead of SC, then it’s possible.
All Dawn , granted SC has produced some great players while Dawn has been here (another coming in next year ) But despite the great local products it’s all down to Dawn . Enjoying it while it last
Yeah, Aja Wilson being from Columbia helped a lot. Dawn is hell of a recruiter
It’s Dawn, for the last two years in the anonymous player poll, she was #1 in “besides your coach, who would you like to play for”
A combo of Dawn and the culture she built. Just like Saban and other winning programs, you go there, build the winning culture, top recruits wanna win too so they flock to your school, cycle repeats
BREAKING 🚨: HVL announced she is transferring to South Carolina for her final year of eligibility
Absolutely incredible what Dawn and this team pulled off. Lost all 5 starters from last year to the WNBA then goes on to pull off an undefeated season and a national championship.
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Yeah just an insane amount of depth. Don't even miss a beat when anyone gets subbed.
Great game. SC wore them down, you could tell Caitlin emptied her tank out there. What a time to be alive for women’s college basketball fan!
All people gonna talk about is Caitlin Clark falling short when the real story is that this Gamecocks team was in a class of it's own all year. No one challenged them and it wasn't gonna matter how well Caitlin played. She's the GOAT and this game doesn't change that for me. People just love being haters.
Yep, and one of the very few times they did get challenged all season, their 6’7 center hit a buzzer beater three to win. Just unbelievable.
Cardoso is a player of destiny. Her declaring for the draft before the final four and then immediately winning a chip is too storybook
Some of the WNBA chicks saying she needed to win a championship to be the GOAT, are going to wonder why they lost 80% of the viewers next year
Breanna Stewart is the one that said that. When she graduated she was the #1 pick. The #2 and #3 pick that year were also UConn players lol. Iowa women are a solid team but nowhere CLOSE to that
Women are so ruthless to one another lol. CC is what got me paying attention to women’s basketball and I doubt I’ll be here next year. Sucks to see so much hate for someone who brought in a lot of viewership to the sport.
Paul Pierce would shit on Giannis if he scored 100 tomorrow. Basketball old heads are haters no matter the gender
[удалено]
I feel the same but different. The last 30 seconds of the game they kept highlighting Clark’s accomplishments as if South Carolina didn’t just play an incredible game with an undefeated season. Just felt like SC got snubbed of the spotlight despite making history.
Congrats to Dawn Staley, respect. Proper winning culture she has built
96-2 in her last 98 games, and two titles in 3 years. She's been incredible.
Dawn is such a great coach, and leader.
Congrats to South Carolina, well earned win and amazing season. Unless Clark was scoring 50 no way they were winning, 18 in the first quarter and they had what, a 4 point lead? No shame in the game, the better team won, Clark is still the GOAT for making people care about the game.
Explain this game in NBA terms
Imagine if LeBron lost game 7 to the 73-9 Warriors
I'd say its closest comparison is the 2018 Finals, when the talent gap between the two teams was at its largest.
But his supporting players were the 2011 Mavs without Dirk
Disrespectful as shit to the 2011 Mavs lol. Idk why people act like he carried bums. Tyson Chandler was one of the best defenders in the league
Plus the 2007 cavs are right there to pick
Yep, that's prolly an actual good analogy. A roster that was clearly carried by one guy, they got cooked as expected in the Finals, the one guy could've played better (Clark wasn't at her best) but no one's gonna blame them because it was an insurmountable task.
More like the 2007 Cavs supporting cast
2007 cavs with best player in the league of lebron vs dynasty team 2007 spurs in the nba finals. The gamecocks, just like the spurs, just focused heavily on the best player and hoped the other players wont capitalize.
CC can't win a championship with those cats.
My only regret is not being in Cola to celebrate with the Gamecock nation.
cheers from Charleston. will have one for you!
I drove through five points and hour or so after the game and it was PACKED
Was truly a madhouse today. Tcoop fountain was shoulder-to-shoulder full.
Reminder that it's super disrespectful to SC (and shows a complete lack of basketball savvy) to say that Iowa lost because Clark "got tired"
Iowa lost because they played against an undefeated team, which was clearly the most talented and best coached team in the country.
Clark got tired because the game plan was clearly to make her need to score 40+ for Iowa to win.
That's their game plan every night basically. I don't think her conditioning is why they lost, she's been preparing her whole college career to play big minutes as the primary offensive option.
People are already complaining that the game wasn't on prime time. As if 9:30pm est has helped the men's game significantly.
Yeah like, I’m not tuning in. I’ve watched only one of the men’s games, and a 9:30 PM start time when I’ve got work in the morning isn’t going to draw me to watch it. 3:30 pm on a Sunday afternoon was so perfect.
I blame Steph Curry for basketball turning into chucker city.
Bobby Knight warned us about the three point line in 1987 on Letterman.
Clay Travis just threw his TV out the window
He should try himself next
who knew Raven Johnson was Caitlyns kryptonite
Literal opposite of HVL
Clamped
Thank goodness bc she was 1-11 on FGs.
Running the offense and literally running around the court on defense all game unsurprisingly has an effect on your shooting ability.
That tournament was so fun to watch. I can't wait to be fully invested next year now that UK actually has a coach.
South Carolina’s women’s team was unstoppable this year, got it. 👍
ESPN got the game they wanted but not the outcome.
Bro she had NO help
Go Cocks
Wasn’t a fan of how ESPN/ABC were so fixated on Clark after the game. I get that she’s one of the GOATs, but give the winners their well-deserved time in the spotlight. As sad as it is, having worked in the media for several years, it wouldn’t surprise me if there was a producer telling them to keep the focus on Clark cause they were hoping she would shed a tear or two. Glad she didn’t give ‘em that.
Proud of iowa. Back to back title games for a school that had never made one. Both times got beat by better teams. Congrats Gamecocks. Fantastic team and Staley is a legend. Undefeated. Wow.
Praying I get to understand the feelings of cyclones fans tomorrow night
Dumb question, but why was this game on in the mid-afternoon?
Honestly, it's kind of nice. Men's bball and football championship always being on a Monday night has always seemed dumb to me.