By Susan Harman

Cleveland, Ohio – The eerie quiet, red faces and tears in Iowa’s locker room told a story more succinctly than a stat sheet.

Iowa and its Wonder woman Caitlin Clark gave it everything they had, but it wasn’t enough against a tall and talented South Carolina team Sunday at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse. The top-ranked Gamecocks (38-0) defeated the Hawkeyes, 87-75, to win their third NCAA women’s basketball championship and second in three years.

Probably the only reason this wasn’t a third in a row is because Iowa upset South Carolina in last year’s semifinals. The Gamecocks have lost only three games in the last three years.

Iowa finished 34-5, the most victories in school history.

“South Carolina is so good,” Clark said. “There’s only so much you can do.”

This year the Gamecocks had it all. They had the bigs inside, like last year, but they also had 3-point shooters and a bench that outscored Iowa a whopping 37-0. Freshman guard Tessa Johnson came off the bench and led the Gamecocks in scoring with 19 points. Freshman MiLashia Fulwiley, the SEC tournament MVP, added nine off the bench. Both of those players were high school All Americans.

“We knew coming in they had great depth,” Gabbie Marshall said. “That’s what makes them so good. They have five people on the bench that could start anywhere in the country, which is pretty crazy.”

“South Carolina holds greatness within their program,” Iowa’s Sydney Affolter said.

Iowa was outscored inside by 16 points and gave up 30 second-chance points. South Carolina grabbed  18 offensive rebounds and outrebounded the Hawkeyes by 22.

“We knew rebounding was going to be an issue. We tried our best boxing out,” Affolter said. “I think we played great defense, and the amount of points they had on offensive rebounds obviously caused problems. They’re a great team; they’re like a professional team. I thought we played a full 40 and gave it our all.”

“It was a big challenge,” Iowa post Hannah Stuelke said. “They had a lot of O-boards and a lot of points off O-boards. She (Kamilla Cardoso) is 6-7. It’s going to be hard for me to get a rebound. I’m 6-2. I thought it was a huge challenge.”

Cardoso, an All American, had 17 rebounds and 15 points.

These are things Iowa knew going into the game. To counteract that kind of inside production Iowa needed to be very, very good from 3-point range and get to the line because there were going to be precious few opportunities to get to the rim. The Gamecocks blocked eight shots and intimidated any kind of drive to the basket.

 Iowa made 9-of-23 threes for a respectable 39 percent, but only three of those came after halftime when the Hawks were 3-of-13 behind the arc.

South Carolina made 8-of-19 (.421) 3-pointers. In last season’s game when Iowa packed in a zone defense to stop the posts the Gamecocks made only 4-of-20 (.200).

Iowa got out to a great start and led 10-0 and 20-9. The transition game was going, and Clark and Kate Martin combined for three 3-pointers. South Carolina responded, but two Clark threes to end the quarter left Iowa up 27-20.

Clark has 18 points in the quarter, an NCAA record for a tournament-game quarter. Then South Carolina used Raven Johnson on defense.

“I was ready for the moment, and I take defense very hard, like I take it to heart,” Johnson said. “I studied her moves, and I was ready. I had confidence this year. I was telling myself last year’s not going to happen again.”

Clark had one 3-pointer in the second quarter and scored nine second-half points for a total of 30.

 The Gamecocks outscored Iowa 29-19 in the second quarter to take a 49-46 halftime lead. They scored the first seven points of the third before Iowa took timeout.

“There’s some crazy statistics where South Carolina just outscores everybody in the second half by a ton of points every single game,” Clark said.

Iowa started to lose touch in the third quarter, and the Gamecocks built the lead to 76-62 with just less than 8 minutes to play in the game. It was hard to get easy baskets, and it was hard to stop South Carolina’s easy baskets.

“You can’t push in transition if you don’t have the ball from those defensive stops,” Affolter said. “You know we’re battling for rebounds and did our best. They are a great team and obviously great offensive rebounders.”

Iowa gamely fought back with two Affolter foul shots, threes from Clark and Gabbie Marshall, a Martin drive and a 3-point play from Affolter.

With 4:13 left Iowa trailed only 80-75.

“That was really cool,” Hannah Stuelke said. “We never gave up; we fought ‘til the end.”

“I don’t think we ever hung our head at any point in the game,” Affolter said. “We were pushing, pushing, pushing at all points. We never thought the game was over until the buzzer went off.”

Raven Johnson missed a three giving Iowa a chance to get closer, but Martin was called for travelling and the spell was broken. South Carolina scored the final 12 points of the game.

“I’m just proud of our resiliency,” Clark said. “We go into the fourth quarter, I think we cut it to five. And we just weren’t able to come up with a few stops and a few baskets.”

Martin scored 16 points, Affolter 12, Stuelke 11 and Marshall six. Iowa shot 40 percent for the game.

“I’m disappointed we lost, obviously,” Martin said. “But it’s nothing to hang our heads about. We gave our best effort. We left it all out on the court. I don’t have any regrets about how I played my entire career. But not having my teammates around, I don’t want this to be over. It stinks really bad knowing that I don’t have a next year with Iowa.”