Published: April 10, 2024
South Carolina was the best team in women's college basketball all season. They went 38-0. They won the SEC. Their roster was stacked with future WNBA picks. And on April 7th in Cleveland, they proved it one last time, beating Iowa 87-75 to win their third national championship.
But the final score is almost secondary to what happened around this game.
18.7 million people watched. That made it the most-watched basketball game of any kind - men's, women's, college, or pro - since 2019. The last three games of Iowa's season all broke women's college basketball viewership records. The Elite Eight against LSU drew 12.3 million. The semifinal against UConn had 14.2 million. Then the final shattered everything.
The driving force was Caitlin Clark.
Clark entered her final college game as the all-time leading scorer in NCAA Division I history - men's or women's. She had broken Pete Maravich's record earlier in the season and Stephen Curry's single-season three-point mark. She had turned Iowa into a national phenomenon and the women's tournament into appointment television.
In the championship game, she was brilliant early. Clark scored 18 points in the first quarter alone, a record for a women's title game. She set the career NCAA Tournament scoring record, surpassing Chamique Holdsclaw. Iowa led 27-20 after one period.
Then South Carolina's depth and size took over. The Gamecocks used a 6-0 run to start the second half and never looked back. Kamilla Cardoso, their 6-foot-7 center, posted 15 points and 17 rebounds. Freshman Tessa Johnson came off the bench with 19 points. South Carolina outrebounded Iowa 46-29.
Clark finished with 30 points, eight rebounds, and five assists. A great game by any standard. But South Carolina had too many weapons. Dawn Staley's team was simply deeper and bigger.
For Staley, it was her third national championship - placing her in a group with Geno Auriemma, Pat Summitt, Kim Mulkey, and Tara VanDerveer as coaches with three or more titles. South Carolina's dynasty under Staley - 109-3 over the last three seasons - stands as one of the most dominant runs in the sport's history.
Clark headed to the WNBA as the No. 1 overall pick in the draft. She had done everything she could to bring a title to Iowa. It wasn't enough, but her legacy goes beyond trophies. She brought an audience to women's college basketball that the sport had never seen before.
The numbers back it up. Tournament attendance set records. Merchandise sales spiked. Television contracts were renegotiated at higher values. What Clark and this generation of players did for the sport's visibility in 2024 will have effects for years.
In short: South Carolina completed a perfect 38-0 season by beating Iowa 87-75 in the championship. Caitlin Clark scored 30 but the Gamecocks' depth was too much. The game drew 18.7 million viewers - the most for any basketball game since 2019 - and marked a turning point for women's college basketball's commercial profile.