What's happening in South Carolina-NC State? (2024)

No. 1 Iowa came from behind to defeat No. 3 Connecticut 71-69 on Friday in a classic in the national semifinals in Cleveland.

Hannah Stuelke led Iowa with 23 points, while Caitlin Clark posted 21 points, nine rebounds and seven assists.

The Hawkeyes trailed by as many as 12 in the first half, but found their offensive rhythm in the second half and pulled ahead in the fourth quarter.

Trailing 70-69 in the final seconds, UConn had a chance to win the game, but Aaliyah Edwards was whistled for an illegal screen with 3.9 seconds to play.

Iowa will face undefeated South Carolina in Sunday's national championship game.

Follow here for live reaction from The Athletic's staff inside the arena.

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For ticket information on the Final Four, click here.

South Carolina's undefeated season looks like it will continue for at least two more days. The Gameco*cks lead the Wolfpack 61-37 after three quarters, outscoring them 29-6 in the third.

Follow here for live updates from the final quarter.

Geno Auriemma built the UConn dynasty by obsessively looking for what could go wrong. Admittedly, that was easy for him. He could always spot potential problems. The perfectionist in him thrived in this setting. But this time, too much was broken.

He was now the oldest living person in his family, and that reality hit him hard. His body reminded him that he was pushing 70. Meanwhile, he had five high school All-Americans sitting on his bench with a slew of injuries. The perfection he spent his life and career building was falling apart by the day, it felt.

And he couldn’t do anything about it.

“It engulfed me,” Auriemma says. “And I couldn’t see my way out.”

For the first time in his career, he was forced to truly reckon with the beast. Not the program that he had built, one that had come to define the sport. And not just a UConn that was once so dominant people said it would ruin women’s basketball. But the piece inside of him that had driven him to do it all along.

The question he had never been able to answer.

When was good enough going to be good enough?

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CLEVELAND — There’s some grit to Sydney Affolter’s game, which is exactly what you’d expect from someone who played basketball on Chicago’s South Side.

The Iowa junior competed for women’s basketball pioneer coach Mary Pat Connolly and was a three-time all-state honoree. Affolter’s on-court aggressiveness and willingness to scrap, whether it’s for a rebound in the post or on the floor for a loose ball, has given her the label of “Chicago tough.” It’s a moniker the 5-foot-11 guard accepts but not with a full-throated endorsem*nt.

“I think people are just trying to fit that narrative,” Affolter said. “I did grow up with an older brother, and I think that’s where a lot of my toughness comes from. I played with the boys growing up before I could play with the girls. So just having an older brother to beat up on me a little bit has made me tough.”

But, Iowa coach Lisa Bluder says, Affolter is “a very blue-collar player.”

Whether Affolter gained a calloused exterior from her older sibling, developed it in her neighborhood as a youth or acquired it from playing in the Big Ten, she’s worthy of the description. When the Hawkeyes have needed a dose of toughness this season, Affolter has been the one to provide it.

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The last time Paige Bueckers played a full season of college basketball, she was the national player of the year, a superstar freshman who immediately lived up to the promise as the country’s top recruit. As the point guard, Bueckers ranked 11th nationally in total points and sixth in total assists, leading UConn to Big East regular-season and tournament titles before a trip to the Final Four.

Three years and two major knee injuries later, Bueckers is even better. It was a high bar to clear after the success of her freshman season, but she has come back from her rehab as an improved player. UConn has needed every bit of that brilliance to return to the Final Four. And it will again Friday when Bueckers will meet Caitlin Clark and Iowa.

“She spent that year getting bigger, getting stronger, getting smarter, learning how to take care of herself,” coach Geno Auriemma said. “So the same freshman Paige, sophom*ore Paige that took us to the Final Four, that’s not the Paige that’s here today.”

The first thing that jumps out in Bueckers’ stat line is her increased scoring. Although she is playing fewer minutes, Bueckers is taking more shots (15.5 per game) and shooting more efficiently (60.3 effective field goal percentage) from the field, despite her 3-pointer percentage taking a dip from her shockingly hot start as a freshman.

Her shot attempts come in different ways since she is no longer the primary ballhandler. She cuts more frequently and comes off of screens and handoffs more often, and she’s significantly increased her points per possession on all those off-ball actions, per Synergy Sports. For context, UConn’s average points per possession is 0.991, which places the Huskies in the 99th percentile of all offenses.

Bueckers’ ability to work without the ball in her hands allows UConn to play her alongside KK Arnold and Nika Mühl, who have to function as creators. Even though Bueckers is by nature more of a playmaker, the Huskies needed her to shape-shift to accommodate the skills of their roster. Not only has Bueckers adapted her game, but she has excelled in the new role. It used to be her size (Bueckers stands at 5 feet 11) was an asset against guards, but even when she’s defended by bigger wings and forwards, she can still elevate into clean looks and use her speed to create space. Plus, she’s a master of making tough shots.

Because of UConn’s injuries, there aren’t many pure scoring threats on the court at all times. Bueckers has to score at a higher rate, and she has aced that challenge.

“I truly believe that this season was the time when she finally realized that, if she wanted to reach a certain level, that she was going to have to become a little more uncomfortable … at how many times she tried to score to take the pressure off our other guys,” Auriemma said.

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When UConn and Iowa met in the 2021 NCAA Tournament, neither Caitlin Clark nor Paige Bueckers was the game’s leading scorer. Much has changed since then. Still, the players around each team’s star guard will make the difference in the Final Four.

Iowa isn’t afraid to mix up defensive looks; Addison O’Grady and Sydney Affolter have played key roles in the tournament. UConn has proven it can play various styles — winning games in Portland after scoring 80 and 53 points, respectively, despite relying on only six or seven players. I wonder if the Huskies’ lack of depth finally plagues them. Foul trouble could be an issue. They’ve improved since the regular season, but UConn struggled against top competition, losing to UCLA, Texas, South Carolina, NC State and Notre Dame, as the Huskies couldn’t contain top guards well. Iowa 82, UConn 74

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Second-seeded Iowa led top-seed UNLV by 20 points in the 1987 men’s basketball Elite Eight.

The 1970 Iowa men’s basketball team still holds the Big Ten record for points per game (102.3) and led Jacksonville by one point with seconds remaining in their Sweet 16 matchup. Ronnie Lester was the best player in the 1980 Final Four, and the Hawkeyes point guard proved it in his first 10 minutes against Louisville.

Ronnie Harmon was an All-American running back entering the 1986 Rose Bowl against UCLA, and No. 3 Iowa still had a shot at the national title. The unbeaten Hawkeyes held a four-point lead on Michigan State after a punt with less than 10 minutes remaining in the 2015 Big Ten football title game.

With 11 seconds left in the 1993 Final Four, Iowa’s women’s basketball team had possession of the ball down one to Ohio State in overtime. Megan Gustafson was the consensus national player of the year in 2019 approaching the Elite Eight against Baylor.

In college athletics’ three highest-profile sports, Iowa’s upper-level history is one of heartbreak.

UNLV rallied for a three-point win. Pembrook Burrows III’s tip-in forged a 104-103 loss. Lester injured his knee after connecting on every shot attempt. Harmon fumbled four times and dropped an easy touchdown pass. Michigan State scored a touchdown with 27 seconds left on a 22-play drive. Laurie Aaron’s slip in the lane with three seconds left doomed the 1993 women. A Baylor blowout.

Every mention in Iowa elicits a wince from people who remember those moments. To this day, those games are discussed with “what-if” components. What if Lester were healthy? What if Spartans running back LJ Scott didn’t stretch for the extra foot across the goal line? What if Harmon didn’t … this goes on and on.

That type of history weighs on a fan base and can topple teams approaching the mountaintop. That even goes for Iowa’s current women’s basketball squad. The Hawkeyes reached the 2023 NCAA title game only to lose 102-85 to LSU. Controversial officiating decisions and postgame taunts combined with season-long hype applied enough pressure on the Hawkeyes to fold at any point this season, and especially in the NCAA Tournament. Instead, they turned pressure into production and scored a 94-87 win against LSU on Monday to advance to the Final Four.

“Honestly, people thought we had a lot of pressure coming in,” Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said. “People kept telling me, ‘This is so hard, your season is going to be so hard.’ I kept saying, ‘Why are we focusing on the hard? Why are we doing that?’

“Billie Jean King is one of my idols. She has a book, “Pressure is a Privilege.” I’ve used that book this year. She wrote that on a piece of paper; it’s framed in my locker room for me. We believe that pressure is a really good thing because that means you’ve done some pretty special things to have pressure on you.”

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Viewership metrics are an important marker in sports media, given money makes the world go round, but ratings stories in sports are usually adjacent at best to the play on the court or field. That’s not the case for this year’s women’s college basketball tournament. The viewership has rightfully been a massive story — and a subject of significance in an ascendent time for women’s basketball. Iowa’s win over LSU in the Elite Eight, a rematch of last year’s championship game, averaged 12.3 million viewers and peaked at 16 million viewers. It is the most-watched women’s college basketball game in history.

To give you some broader context on the numbers:

• The viewership was higher than every World Series game in 2023;
• It topped four of the five games of the 2023 NBA Finals;
• It beat the 12.1 million viewers for the final round of the Masters last year;
• Only five college football games in 2023 had higher viewership.

UConn’s win over USC in Monday’s other Elite Eight matchup drew 6.7 million viewers (and peaked at 10.4 million viewers), which would have surpassed every women’s college basketball title game viewership since 1996 except for last year’s championship game.

With that kind of viewership momentum, what can we expect from the Final Four? We thought it would be interesting to look at the four potential championship game matchups (Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on ABC) and predict their viewership potential, from highest to lowest.

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How far has Caitlin Clark mania reached? Card grading company PSA says that Clark's monthly totals of graded cards have increased by a whopping 12,279 percent since May 2023. Even recently, the surge has reflected her rising popularity. In February, PSA graded 1,943 Clark cards. In March, they graded 4,209.

The most popular of the submitted cards is her 2022 Bowman Chrome U. And while many consider that to be Clark's rookie, don't discount the value of Clark's 2021 Sports Illustrated for Kids card, which can range anywhere from $70 to several hundred depending on the condition.

And if you want more proof Clark is a hot commodity in the collectibles market, her Topps Now archive — which tracks how many print-to-order cards have been made of Clark — shows eight cards with print runs of over 10,000, including 51.861 printed when she broke Pete Marvich's scoring record and 47.962 for a card made commemorating Clark breaking the women's all-time scoring record.

CLEVELAND — There’s just something different this time around.

That’s not to take anything away from last year’s Final Four in Dallas. History will always look back fondly on that entire women’s NCAA Tournament from start to finish — the first-weekend upsets, undefeated South Carolina falling in the national semifinals, and, of course, Caitlin Clark vs. Angel Reese Part I. It was a pivotal moment for women’s basketball, full stop.

But what happened this week in Albany, N.Y., led to the sport’s taking an entirely new leap, a jump that I’m not sure even I could have predicted at this point. It was … just … a normal major sporting event.

LSU vs. Iowa was treated just like any other monster game. In the lead-up, there was a lot of media coverage, as analysts broke down where teams had strengths (LSU in the post, Iowa at the logo) and weaknesses as well as motivation heading into a revenge game for the Hawkeyes. We weren’t told to watch the game simply because we should support women’s sports. We were drawn to the game because it was incredibly compelling.

During and after the game, fans argued about LSU coach Kim Mulkey’s (failed) defensive game plan for Clark. The way Mulkey used Hailey Van Lith — not taking her off the Clark assignment, not giving her help, leaving her all alone on an island — became a running joke on social media. The video of Van Lith shrugging because she’d done her best and it wasn’t enough against Clark became an instant meme, as versatile as the classic Alonzo Mourning nodding GIF in my mind.

After the game, fans debated how much Reese’s rolled ankle had an impact on the game. They wondered whether she’d declare for the WNBA, and she got asked about it after the game, just like J.J. McCarthy did after Michigan won its football national championship. (McCarthy ended up announcing his decision on X; Reese did it in Vogue magazine, so there is that one slight difference.) Analysts and WNBA players alike discussed how some of college basketball’s biggest stars will fit in at the next level. Postgame interviews circulated for days, and their content led sports talk shows all week. There were, predictably, some bad takes as there often are when sports fans or hot-take artists chime in on anything.

It was all very … normal. Beautifully, spectacularly, refreshingly normal.

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When Larry Silverberg and his colleague Chau Tran began studying the science of the basketball shot in the early 2000s, Iowa star Caitlin Clark was just a toddler but had yet to walk to the 3-point line, let alone pull up from 5 feet behind the arc. But even with Clark, Stephen Curry and the explosion of the 3 still years away, the jump shot became among the academic focuses for Silverberg and Tran, both of whom are basketball fans and professors in North Carolina State’s mechanical and aerospace engineering department. “Basketball,” Silverberg says, “is highly predictable.”

Formulas that predict whether a pull-up will go through a 10-foot hoop with an 18-inch diameter take into account factors such as release height, launch angle, release speed and backspin. It’s why for years now, robots capable of shooting like top-tier basketball players have developed. Although Clark is no Cue6, her proficiency from deep often looks automatic.

In dissecting the shooting skills of Clark, who broke the women’s Big Ten, NCAA and major-college career scoring records this season, Tran picks up on the 6-foot guard’s high release point. Silverberg notices the arc on her jumper and how her 3-pointer appears to travel on an ideal trajectory. “She’s shooting an optimal shot,” Silverberg says.

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Oftentimes when society takes what is perceived to be a significant step forward, we stop and ask whether we are witnessing a movement or a moment. That question seems particularly relevant today as we near the finish line of the most memorable and consequential season in women’s collegiate basketball history.

An entity once marginalized by fans and broadcast partners alike is suddenly as hot as fish grease. The Associated Press is reporting that tickets to the women’s Final Four are going for at least double that of the men on the secondary market, which is understandable considering one is played in an arena, the other a football stadium. But it wouldn’t be shocking even if both were in the same building considering the interest in Iowa’s 94-87 victory over LSU on Monday night in the Elite Eight showdown.

The rematch of last season’s NCAA championship game attracted 12.3 million viewers to become the most-watched collegiate women’s basketball game in history despite being aired on cable. Sportsmediawatch.com reported that it was ESPN’s largest basketball audience since Game 7 of the 2018 Eastern Conference finals, and Joe Pompliano of “The Joe Pomp Show” said it outdrew both the 2023 NBA Finals and World Series, as well as the Orange, Cotton and Peach bowls, and the Big Ten, Pac-12, Big 12 and ACC championship football games.

Disney CEO Bob Iger was among the voices openly celebrating the game, taking a moment at Tuesday’s annual shareholders meeting to say of women’s sports, “Not only have they arrived, but their potential is tremendous.” The comment raised a few eyebrows if only because Disney, which owns ABC and ESPN, is airing the South Carolina-North Carolina State and Iowa-Connecticut semifinals on cable TV Friday rather than on ABC, where there would be access to a larger audience.

But at this point, the games could be shown on the BBC and they’d likely get huge numbers. The play is that good, the storylines that compelling, the interest that high. And yet the question of moment-versus-movement remains valid if viewed through a historical lens.

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The excitement surrounding the women’s Final Four is soaring.

South Carolina attempting to complete an unbeaten season. Iowa’s Caitlin Clark versus Connecticut’s Paige Bueckers in the national semifinals. There are storylines galore.

If fans make the trek to Cleveland, they will have to pay a steep price for a ticket. The starting price for an all-session ticket — both semifinals Friday, and the championship Sunday — to the women’s Final Four was $710 as of Wednesday morning and will likely increase by Friday, according to StubHub. With service fees, it’s a get-in price of $965. The get-in price for Friday’s semifinals was $334, and the cheapest ticket to the championship game was $370 on StubHub (all before service fees).

The average ticket sale price on StubHub — including all-session, semifinal and championship ticket sales — was $718 as of Wednesday morning, a massive leap from last year’s average of $479.

Women’s Final Four tickets are also more expensive than the men’s Final Four in Glendale, Ariz. The men’s Final Four starting price for all session tickets is $608, according to StubHub, and the average ticket sale price is $702. But prices are also much higher for the men’s Final Four this year; the average ticket sale price a year ago on StubHub was $390.

Women’s Final Four sales outpaced last year’s sales on StubHub by 80 percent and were expected to surpass the 2023 total by the end of Wednesday.

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