Scott Van Pelt: Dream matchup in NCAA women’s title game
So, it’s come to this. In a remarkable season for women’s college basketball, the lone unbeaten team takes on Halley’s Comet. A one-woman, sold-out show responsible for ratings never before seen in the sport. And while we’re at it — the unbeaten team that has lost only once in the past two seasons, and it was to the team they will play on Sunday. South Carolina and Iowa run it back.
Iowa already got even with LSU, which beat the Hawkeyes for the title after Iowa knocked off South Carolina in last year’s Final Four. Now Dawn Staley’s team gets the chance for revenge.
It’s a completely different team, though. One that replaced its entire starting five. As Staley told me earlier, she’s never been around a team that hates losing more. They haven’t had to deal with that this year. Not even once.
The last time Staley’s team was on the wrong end of a score, Caitlin Clark dropped 41 on them in the national semis last season. Since then, Clark has put her name in record books as she truly became a phenomenon. Sold-out venues, little girls in No. 22 jerseys at home and on the road — there’s one thing left to do … the hardest part. Win the last one.
Breanna Stewart, who won four titles in a row for UConn, suggested Clark needed to. Means more coming from Stewie than it would from one of us.
But here’s what I’d say about that: No matter what happens, years from now when people remember this season, what will they think of? Undoubtedly it will be the young lady from Iowa with the ponytail pulling from 30. Caitlin Clark is a forever player in that sense.
But the Gamecocks stand in the way of the Hawkeyes being a forever team and if they finish 38-0, that’s what they become.
Nothing more you could possibly ask for in a sport that has enjoyed a season of uncommon attention. South Carolina and Iowa have 40 more minutes for the rest of their lives.