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Despite being the top overall seed, the only undefeated women’s college basketball team and a deep roster, No. 1 South Carolina seems to have gone under the radar throughout the NCAA tournament.
Maybe that will change on Sunday.
The Gamecocks advanced to the national championship game, defeating No. 3 NC State 78-59 in the Final Four at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland, Ohio.
South Carolina, now 37-0, will face the No. 1 Iowa Hawkeyes, led by Caitlin Clark, or the No. 3 UConn Huskies, led by Paige Bukers, in Sunday’s title game. Iowa and UConn play in the second semifinal, which is on ESPN.
South Carolina’s Camila Cardoso, who declared Monday to enter the WNBA draft, finished with 22 points, 10-of-12 shooting and 11 rebounds. The 6-foot-7 center started the game 6 for 6 from the field and scored the team’s first 10 points of the second quarter. She led all scorers with 16 in the first half.
However, there was cause for concern with just over 2 minutes remaining before half time. Cardoso limped out after trying to get to the basket and hobbled to the locker room with 1:39 left in the quarter. South Carolina led 32-31 at the break.
But Cardoso returned early in the second half and South Carolina came out firing, outscoring the Wolfpack 29-6 in the third quarter and ending the period on a 17-1 run.
By then, the game was out of reach at 61-37, and head coach Dawn Staley benched Cardoso for the fourth quarter.
“I mean, you play to your strengths,” Staley told reporters. “Camila is our strength. She is 6’7”. She is agile. She can command the paint. She plays with a desire to win.”
Staley later said of Cardozo, “Greatness is a process. And she’s still very much in, I think, in the beginning stages of her greatness. I think you’ll see her play a lot better when she’s with professional players.”
Ashlyn Watkins had 20 rebounds with eight points, while Raven Johnson had 13 points and five assists. Te-Hina Paopao added 10 points and six assists.
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South Carolina’s Camila Cardoso shoots the ball against the NC State Wolfpack in the first half.
It was an NCAA tournament loaded with star power, with Iowa’s Clark, UConn’s Bukers, LSU’s Angel Reese and USC’s JuJu Watkins just to name a few. Meanwhile, South Carolina keeps winning.
South Carolina, now 108-3 over the past three seasons, returns to the national championship game for the first time since 2022, when it won the national title for the second time in program history. It’s the Gamecocks’ fourth straight Final Four appearance and a chance for them to win their third national title in seven years.
For NC State, a dream season ends at 31-7. It was the Wolfpack’s second trip to the Final Four and first since 1998.
Asiaha James led NC State with 20 points.
In the second semifinal, it was seemingly all about Clark, although UConn’s Bueckers might disagree.
After a historic regular season, Clark almost single-handedly led Iowa through March Madness, culminating in a 41-point performance against LSU in the Elite Eight.
That dominant outing not only exorcised some demons from last year’s title game, but also cemented Clark’s status as the most dominant player in women’s college basketball right now, with UConn Huskies coach Geno Auriemma saying, “We don’t plan on stopping her because i tried calling all the other coaches that have suspended her but none of them are answering the phone. So we’re going to have to find a different way to win than stopping Caitlin Clark.”
Just one final accolade remains for Clarke before she heads to the WNBA: winning a national championship.
After falling at the final hurdle last time out, the three-point specialist once again has an excellent chance to win that once-elusive title — both for Iowa and for herself — with just two games remaining between her and college basketball’s most prestigious trophy.
“There are two more [games] there to get to,” she said Monday. “That’s what makes the Final Four so much fun. Anyone can take it. Anyone can win it.
“I think we have the power to do that.”
Clark will take the court in the Final Four against the Huskies, a team she thought she would play for growing up.
Last month, Clark admitted that he idolizes former UConn star Maya Moore and, as a result, wants to follow in her footsteps.
“I wanted to be just like her. I thought I was going to go to UConn when I grew up, but obviously that didn’t happen,” Clark told reporters last month.
“Kaitlin is obviously a great player, a generational player, but if Kaitlin really wanted to come to UConn, she would have called me and said, ‘Coach, I really want to come to UConn,'” Auriemma told reporters at Tuesday.
“So I don’t think any of us lost. I think she made the best decision for her and it worked out great. We made the decision we felt we had to make,” he added.
“I’m trying to figure out who fits us, I’m trying to figure them out early. This is what happened to me and Paige. We felt really, really comfortable with that and we embraced it.”
Although the specter of what could have happened hangs over the game, the Huskies are formidable in their quest for a record-extending 12th national championship with a star guard of their own.
Bueckers has been one of the standout players of March Madness so far, putting his team on his back during their run to a 23rd Final Four appearance.
The 22-year-old is coming back from a season lost last year due to a serious knee injury and has been accelerating in the tournament.
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Bueckers and Nika Muhl embrace after UConn’s win over USC in the Elite Eight round.
She played every minute of UConn’s last three March Madness games, scoring 32, 24 and 28 points in an impressive string of performances.
Perhaps her most impressive performance came in UConn’s Elite Eight clash with then-No. 1 USC Trojans when he finished with 28 points, 10 rebounds and six assists to advance the Huskies to the semifinals.
Although she has already announced she will return to UConn next season instead of declaring for the WNBA draft, Bueckers is one of the stars of the Final Four and will prove to be a tough obstacle for Iowa to overcome.
