Yahoo Sports No. 1 South Carolina vs Iowa in NCAA women’s national championship: How to watch
It’s the rematch everyone wanted, for all the marbles.
The No. 1 South Carolina women’s basketball team meets Iowa in the NCAA championship game on Sunday afternoon in Cleveland (3 p.m., ABC) in a highly anticipated of last year’s national semifinals in Dallas that could break television viewership records. Here’s how to watch and what to know.
South Carolina vs. Iowa game info
Who: No. 1 South Carolina (37-0) vs. No. 1 Iowa (34-4)
Where: Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland, Ohio
When: 3 p.m. Sunday
TV: ABC (Ryan Ruocco, Rebecca Lobo, Holly Rowe)
Radio: 107.5 FM in Columbia area (see full list of affiliates here)
Point spread: South Carolina by 6.5 points (ESPN BET)
Running it back
An undefeated South Carolina team led by coach Dawn Staley and loaded with McDonald’s All-Americans who essentially function as two starting lineups.
A high-scoring Iowa squad spearheaded by record-breaking guard Caitlin Clark with some secondary players who can put the ball in the basket, too.
If it sounds familiar, it’s because these teams played each other in nearly identical circumstances last April in Dallas. USC was the undefeated No. 1 overall seed but came two games short of a perfect season thanks to Clark (who had 41 points) and the Hawkeyes.
Everyone in the South Carolina program attached to that loss has processed it differently. Guard Raven Johnson has watched the game 100 times, she said. Staley has avoided it because she’s focused on this year’s team and how it matches up to Iowa — not last year’s.
But nobody is anything but locked in.
“The fact we made it here with our team, it’s been amazing,” said guard Te-Hina Paopao, an Oregon transfer. “I’m kind of shocked, but at the same time we were prepared for this. We got ready for this. And to know that we play in the championship game, it’s a great feeling.”
Iowa and Clark have been expected to reach this stage all season, too, and are seeking their own shining moment after losing to LSU by 17 points in last year’s national championship game — a huge motivating factor for Clark, whose team eliminated LSU in the Elite Eight last weekend.
“I think for myself, it’s that I always believed in this team,” Clark said. “I believe in the people around me. Coach (Lisa) Bluder is so good at building teams. So I think there was always a belief from Day One that we can get back to this national title game.”
Setting a new TV record?
Women’s basketball is in a good spot. A very good spot. Between USC, Staley, Iowa and Clark — and dozens of other talented players and entertaining teams — the sport is experiencing surges in attention, coverage, viewership and attendance.
Case in point: Last Monday’s thrilling Elite Eight game between No. 1 Iowa and No. 3 LSU averaged 12.3 million viewers on ESPN, per the network, which made it the most-watched college basketball game — men’s or women’s — to air on an ESPN platform.
Then, four days later, Friday’s Iowa-UConn semifinal game (which was played after South Carolina-N.C. State and ended with a controversial call) surpassed the record set four days earlier. Iowa-UConn averaged 14.2 million viewers and peaked at 17 million viewers.
Could South Carolina-Iowa break the record again?
One prominent media reporter thinks so. The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch, a longtime follower of television trends, predicted an USC-Iowa game would draw an average of 16.9 million viewers on ABC.
“Iowa’s Caitlin Clark attempting to take down undefeated South Carolina would be the mother of all viewership matchups,” Deistch wrote yesterday, adding that it “has everything one could want in a title game.”
Staley spoke glowingly about the state of the game in her pregame news conference Saturday but said she hopes that momentum continues.
“I hope that everybody gets exactly what they want out of it,” Staley said. “I just hope the viewers, the people in attendance will take tomorrow’s moment and carry it to the rest of the history of our sport. Hopefully, we can keep the eyeballs and demand where it needs to be.”
South Carolina vs. Iowa game notes
In the Staley era, South Carolina is 16-2 (0.888) in postseason games with a championship (in name) on the line: 2-0 in NCAA championship games, 6-1 in NCAA regional championship (Elite Eight) games and 8-1 in SEC Tournament title games.
South Carolina center Kamilla Cardoso is the fifth player in Gamecocks history to have multiple games of 22 or more points in a single tournament (most recently Aliyah Boston in 2022).
Gamecocks guard Raven Johnson enters the season finale ranked second in the country with a 3.1 assist-to-turnover ratio and has logged nine games this season with zero turnovers (including Friday in the Final Four).
Iowa is the first team in Big Ten history to play in back-to-back national championship games and has tied 1998-99 Purdue and 2014-15 Maryland for most single-season wins in B1G history with 34.
Clark enters the game with an NCAA record 3,921 career points and is the first Division I player to score over 1,000 points in back-to-back seasons.
Over the last 25 seasons, no men’s or women’s college basketball player has recorded more games of 30 or more points than Clark, who has 58.
