The end has arrived: Iowa faces South Carolina for the NCAA women’s basketball championship

CLEVELAND — As they traversed through the NCAA women’s basketball tournament, the Iowa Hawkeyes became a big-game magnet.

“I keep feeling like we're playing in games everybody wants to see,” Iowa Coach Lisa Bluder said. “The LSU game, the UConn game, now this ... ”

This. It gets no bigger than this.

Led by, maybe, the greatest player of all time, Iowa will try to slay Goliath for the second straight year. The second-ranked Hawkeyes (34-4) face No. 1 South Carolina (37-0) for the national championship Sunday at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.

Tipoff is 2 p.m. (CT) in a game that will be televised by ABC.

“I hope it’s the most-watched game ever,” South Carolina Coach Dawn Staley said. “I hope everybody gets what they want out of it.”

Of course, only one team will truly get what it wants.

“It's hard when your season ends, no matter what stage it is,” said Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, who will wear her soon-to-be-retired black-and-gold 22 uniform for the final time.

“I think it's the same thing right now. I don't want this to end, whether it's with a win or with a loss.”

Iowa stunned South Carolina, 77-73, in the 2023 national semifinals. That is the Gamecocks’ only blemish in the last 80 games.

In a game that drew an average of 14.2 million viewers on ESPN — the most-watched women’s basketball game on record — Iowa edged Connecticut, 71-69, Friday night.

Bluder was right. Everybody wants to see the Hawkeyes.

Like last year’s encounter with South Carolina, the Hawkeyes face an uphill climb. The Gamecocks outscore their opponents by an average of 29.6 points per game.

Iowa is a 6 1/2-point underdog.

“That is a team that just doesn't have a lot of weaknesses,” Bluder said. “It's really hard to defend them. One person can't stop (6-foot-7 post Kamilla Cardoso). There's no way. I don't know if two or three can stop her, to be quite honest.”

Clark dropped 41 points on the Gamecocks last year.

“You can’t help but love the way she dissects the game. Her game is simple, but powerful,” Staley said. “How do you defend fundamental basketball with fundamental defense? You can’t. She’s going to win every time.”

It will be the 139th consecutive game in which Clark and Martin both are in the starting lineup. Gabbie Marshall will make her 137th career start.

With 3.9 seconds left and Iowa nursing a one-point lead Friday, Marshall drew a key foul on Connecticut’s Aaliyah Edwards.

The aftermath has been ugly.

“I’ve gotten a lot of hate comments (on social media),” Marshall said. “I don't know. I'm not the one that made the call. So I'm not sure why they're mad at me personally.”

Edwards was called for a moving screen as Marshall pursued UConn’s Paige Bueckers.

“If it's the right call, it's the right call. It's out of my control to make the calls, but personally I thought it was an illegal screen and it's not like it was the first one of the game,” said Marshall, who said she has deleted her social media account.

Iowa tipped off its semifinal game at 9:30 p.m. Friday, Cleveland time. It was 2 or 3 a.m. when Hawkeye heads hit their pillows.

So Sunday’s preparation is somewhere at the intersection of game planning and rest.

“Scouting reports are really good to look at and to memorize at this point, but not so much to go on the floor with,” Bluder said. “Legs are really, really important, especially when you're going against a South Carolina team that is so deep. You don't have the advantage of wearing people down.”

Iowa’s season began Oct. 15 with the Crossover at Kinnick. It will end, nearly six months later, as long as it can go.

“We're not sick of each other yet,” Bluder said.

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Comments: jeff.linder@thegazette.com