The undefeated South Carolina Gamecocks sealed in a banner year for women’s basketball as they took home the 2024 NCAA Division I National Championship against Caitlin Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyes on Sunday night. The win marks the team’s third national championship title under the leadership of WNBA legend, Olympian, and Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley.
Hosted at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland, Ohio, the Gamecocks overtook the Hawkeyes in a rousing high-stakes battle with a final score of 87-75. Leading South Carolina’s scoring effort were Tessa Johnson with 19 points and Kamilla Cardoso, who last week declared for the WNBA Draft, with 17 points. After Iowa knocked South Carolina out of last year’s tournament in the Final Four, the Gamecocks were hungry for redemption. Two years after their last championship title, they delivered with a perfect season— only the tenth team to do so in the history of Division I women’s basketball, according to NBC News.
“I’m so incredibly happy for our players,” Staley said through tears as she and the team accepted their trophy during the broadcast. “I’m super proud of where I work, I’m super proud of our fans — it’s awesome. It’s awesome. It’s unbelievable.”
“I want to personally thank Caitlin Clark for lifting up our sport. She carried a heavy load for our sport,” Staley added. “And it’s just … it’s not going to stop here on the collegiate tour, but when she is the No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft, she’s going to lift that league up as well. So, Caitlin Clark, if you’re out there: You are one of the GOATs of our game, and we appreciate you.”
Though Iowa’s hopes of taking home their first national title were ultimately dashed, Clark — one of NCAA basketball’s household names and, as Staley noted, expected to be the first overall pick at the WNBA draft later this month — lived up to the hype by shattering a couple last records before closing her collegiate chapter. In the first ten minutes of the game, Clark put up 18 points — the most points ever scored by a player in a single quarter of a championship game, according to Yahoo Sports. She also broke the all-time NCAA women’s tournament scoring record with 480 career points. The Hawkeyes star finished with 30 points in the last game of her NCAA career.
Sunday night’s contest closed out a season of shattered records and unprecedented interest in the game of women’s basketball. Peaking at 17 million viewers, Iowa’s Final Four win vs. UConn on Friday night became the most-watched ESPN basketball game ever. Last Monday, per the New Yorker, 12 million people tuned in for Iowa’s Elite Eight matchup against LSU, shattering both ESPN’s record viewership for women’s basketball and clocking more viewers than any MLB game last year and racking up higher ratings than any NHL game in fifty years. With Clark leading the charge, star athletes like Angel Reese (who has also declared for the draft) and UConn’s Paige Bueckers have scored brand deals with Nike, Xfinity, McDonald’s, Coach, Amazon, and more. And, most importantly, these athletes are finally getting some long overdue respect — a far cry from 2021’s shoddy excuse for a weight room, the inability for the women’s tournament to use March Madness branding, and “no one watches women’s sports” chants.
After decades of sexist opines and paltry investments, American audiences are finally getting a chance to see the real power of women’s sports. Is it any wonder those fans are showing up in hordes?
As NBA legend Kevin Garnett said last month: “Women’s college basketball is fucking electric, lord. It is blowing the guys’ game out of the water.”
By Emily Leibert , 2024-04-08 02:37:31
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