Sunday’s national title game end of an era for remarkable Hawkeye triumvirate
Caitlin Clark, Gabbie Marshall, Kate Martin have led program to unprecedented success
By Susan Harman
CLEVELAND, Ohio – It’s time for Iowa fans to get used to the inevitable. The women’s basketball team has extended its stay to the season’s final game for two years in a row. This isn’t Connecticut or Pat Summit’s Tennessee we’re talking about. It’s Iowa.
Sunday’s NCAA championship game against South Carolina will be, win or lose, the swan song of one of the most remarkable groups of players ever to play at Iowa. They have authored two seasons that went to the wire.
We’ve wrung every last ounce out of Kate Martin (6th year), Gabbie Marshall (5th) and Caitlin Clark (4th). They have started together since the Hoover administration.
“I think after last season, it was like, oh, my gosh, how can I possibly replicate the season we had?” said Clark. “I think what we were able to do with that season was simply magical. The teams that we beat to get to the point that we were was really special.
“I think for myself it’s like, I always believe in this team. 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 of we can get back to this national title game.
“A lot of things have to go your way. You’ve got to stay healthy. You have to make shots at the right time. You’ve got to have a little luck, things like that.”
Since a belly flop at Indiana on Feb. 22 Iowa has won 11 games in a row, including eliminating defending champion LSU, to get here. A 12th will be the most difficult feat of all. South Carolina won the national title in 2022, was undefeated and top ranked into the national semifinals a year ago when Iowa upset it, and is back again undefeated, top-ranked and holding a year-long grudge.
But Iowa is in unprecedented territory.
“After all our success last year we knew how good we were, how good we could be,” Marshall said. “Obviously we lost some parts, but we knew that people would step up. The people that had to step into bigger roles are doing a great job.
“The biggest thing for Caitlin, Kate and I was just build them up and sew confidence in them. Make sure they believe in themselves and know that we believe in them. And I think that at the end of the year the Final Four was always our goal. It’s something we talked about. We knew we could get there. We knew we belong here.”
Iowa has scaled every obstacle in its path to this point: the all-out defense of West Virginia, the nemesis and outrageous celebrity that is LSU and the royalty that is Connecticut. But South Carolina is different.
“This is a team that just doesn’t have a lot of weaknesses,” Bluder said. “It’s really hard to defend them. Kamilla’s (Cardoso) been playing so well, just runs the floor beautifully, rebounds incredibly, shooting the ball well. One person can’t stop her. There’s no way. I don’t know if two or three can stop her, to be quite honest.”
Cardoso is a 6-foot-7 All-American post from Brazil, who was the SEC’s defensive player of the year. She came off the bench a year ago because coach Dawn Staley had an embarrassment of riches in the post. She is the team’s star this year. With her anchoring the defense, the paint is where shots go to die.
“They’re very long; they’re big; they’re physical,” Martin said. “We know they are going to try to get into some passing lanes, get tips on some balls. We’re really going to have to shift their defense as much as possible and make them play deep into the shot clock because that’s hard to guard.”
Martin said South Carolina’s perimeter shooting is much improved. “So putting four or five people in the paint is not really an option this year,” she said.
“They’re just so disciplined in every single thing that they do,” Clark said. “They shoot the ball really well at all three guard positions. They bring guards in off the bench that are really good. Obviously their height poses a challenge to us. And their rebounding poses a challenge to us. It’s going to be very important that we try to box out.
“But I think going into that game last year, to say we’re going to beat South Carolina on the glass is probably something that’s not going to happen every single time we play them. But you have to be able to manage it the best you can.”
Do they have one more miracle left? The Hawkeyes are the underdog as they were a year ago. They believe in their chances even as the Gamecocks and most observers believe South Carolina will get it done this time.