Coach Dawn Staley and South Carolina completed their perfect season, ending Caitlin Clark’s historic college career with an 87-75 win over Iowa in the NCAA championship game. The 38-0 Gamecocks became the 10th Division I team to go through a season without a loss.
Posted April 7, 2024 6:08 p.m. EDT
By Doug Feinberg, AP basketball writer
CLEVELAND Dawn Staley and South Carolina completed their perfect season, ending Caitlin Clark’s historic college career with an 87-75 win over Iowa in the NCAA championship game Sunday.
With Staley directing a relentless attack from the sideline, the Gamecocks (38-0) became the 10th Division I team to go through a season without a loss. And they accomplished the feat after they lost all five starters from last season’s team that lost to Clark’s squad in the national semifinals.
“It doesn’t always end like you want it to end, much like last year. But my freshies are at the top of my heart because they wanted this. It’s awesome. …. It’s awesome. It’s awesome. It’s unbelievable,” Staley said. „When young people lock in and have a belief, and have a trust, and their parents have that same trust, this is what can happen. They made history. They etched their names in the history books.”
Clark did all she could to lead the Hawkeyes to their first championship. She scored 30 points, including a championship-record 18 in the first quarter. She will go down as one of the greatest players in NCAA history. She rewrote the record book at Iowa (34-5), finishing as the career leading scorer in NCAA Division I history with 3,951 career points.
She hopes her legacy isn’t defined by falling short in two NCAA championship games, but more by the millions of new fans she helped bring into the game and the countless young girls and boys that she inspired.
„I think the biggest thing is it’s really hard to win these things, I think I know that better than most people by now, to be so close twice really hurts,” Clark said.
As the final buzzer sounded, a stoic Clark walked off the court, through the confetti, and into the tunnel heading to the locker room.
