Iowa women are playing elite basketball. April basketball. Championship basketball?

DALLAS — Only the last two teams in America are playing women’s basketball in April.

Iowa is one of them.

No fooling.

The NCAA women’s basketball championship will be played in front of a sellout crowd and a massive TV audience Sunday afternoon at American Airlines Center.

Tipoff is 2:30 p.m. (ABC).

It will take place, not between so-called bluebloods, but between a pair of title-game newcomers -- third-ranked Iowa (31-6) and No. 9 LSU (33-2).

One of the Hawkeyes’ new mantras is a three-word phrase: “Why Not Us?”

Why not, indeed.

Iowa stunned the majority of the women’s college basketball establishment Friday night, 77-73 over No. 1 South Carolina, snapping the defending-champion Gamecocks’ 42-game win streak.

Caitlin Clark, of course, has many qualities that intersect to make her the best player in the game. One that doesn’t get much play:

Her endurance.

“We put a lot of people on her,” South Carolina Coach Dawn Staley said. “We were trying to tire her out. Maybe we tired her a little, but not enough to get us an edge.”

Instead, Clark stung the Gamecocks for 41 points and eight assists. Yes, she coughed up eight turnovers, but she was golden at the free-throw line, hitting four in a row with the game on the line.

It’s a milestone when a player reaches 1,000 points in a career. Clark has 1,025 this season.

⧉ Related article: Now everyone knows: No moment is too big for Caitlin Clark and Hawkeyes

“She doesn't really surprise me anymore, but I was worried about her getting tired out there,” Iowa Coach Lisa Bluder said, “She had to play a lot of minutes.

“I think she's the most phenomenal basketball player in America. I just don't think there's anybody like her.”

In a game that featured this year’s national player of the year (Clark) and last year’s version (Aliyah Boston), it was Clark in a landslide.

Boston was burdened by foul trouble, converting just 2 of 9 shots and managed just eight points to go with 10 rebounds.

“I don't really think they were doing anything different. I think they were just being very physical,” Boston said. “I feel like every time teams get ready to play us, there's always that agenda of we are so physical. We can take all the aggression.

“So I think that that was being let go a lot, but I don't think it was anything different. I think it was just a very physical game.”

If Friday was an official passing of the torch from Boston to Clark, it may have been a similar event in the team realm.

“Obviously, it feels really good to take down a team that's won 42 straight basketball games,” Clark said. “That's really, really hard to do. Nobody's been able to do that all year. All we did was believe and go out and achieve it.”

Now, there’s one more for the Hawkeyes to go out and get.

Why Not Them?

Comments: jeff.linder@thegazette.com