Just about everyone at Target Center wearing black and gold - and there were a lot of them - were waiting.
Iowa was on the way to the most dominating performance in the history of the Big Ten women's basketball tournament title game. It was name-your-score time.
(The final: Iowa 105, Ohio State 72.)
In the stands, the party had started, but there was one more thing.
Ohio State's Taylor Mikesell took a shot, missed. With 5 minutes, 18 seconds left in this performance for the ages, Caitlin Clark ran down the rebound, her 10th, securing a triple-double.
Pandemonium.
"I knew I needed one more," Clark said. "Coach told me right before that. It was a really long rebound, I had to turn the jets on to get it. It was a fun moment."
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As Clark said after the second-seeded Hawkeyes (26-6) surged their way to their second straight consecutive title in their third consecutive appearance in the final, this was not a one-player thing. Center Monika Czinano made 11 of 12 shots. Gabby Marshall made 13 threes during the tournament, the third-most ever. Iowa's 62.1% shooting was tied for the best ever. All five starters scored in double figures in the semifinals; four players did Sunday. The 105 points were the most in tournament history, the 33-point margin the biggest in a title game.
But, man, Clark:
She scored 30 points with 17 assists, 10 rebounds, a steal and just two turnovers against a fourth-seeded and 14th-ranked Ohio State team that used its press to make the biggest comeback in Big Ten history the day before. She became the first woman to have 30 points and at least 15 assists in the past 20 years of Division I basketball. She had the first ever title-game triple-double.
"Spectacular," Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said. "Seventeen assists and two turnovers? I don't know how you can say she's not the player of the year in this country."
Clark plays, and acts, with a broad brush on the basketball court. She interacts with officials, sometimes her opponents, always the fans. Sunday, after she was intentionally fouled late and hit both free throws, she cupped an ear to the stands. After the game was over she stepped alone onto the temporary stage built at center court for the celebration, taking a video of the crowd, then turning the camera on herself.
Ohio State coach Kevin McGuff has watched Clark for three years now. She could always score, but: "She reading the floor at an extremely high level," McGuff said. "She sees the floor and makes the right decisions as well as anybody I've seen, maybe ever, in college basketball."
But, again, this was a team effort. The Hawkeyes (26-6) used a 20-2 run to end the first quarter to go up 26-9. And then there was the second quarter.
The Hawkeyes outscored Ohio State 35-15. They made 11 of 17 shots, went 2-for-4 on threes, got the line 13 times, making 11, outrebounded OSU 16-6, at the same time holding the Buckeyes (25-7) to 5-for-18 shooting.
"That second quarter might be the best quarter of basketball I've seen, or been a part of, in a long time," Bluder said.
"It was fun to be a part of," said Kate Martin, who scored 13 points on 5-for-6 shooting. "We were getting a lot of stops on defense, moving, communicating. And we got to push in transition a lot."
This time fourth-seeded Ohio State didn't have the second-half magic. So as the fourth quarter wound down and Bluder started taking her starters out, there was one ovation after another. But everyone was waiting for the biggest one, which is why, sitting on the bench, the final 4 minutes seeded to take forever for Clark.
"It was the longest 4 minutes ever," she said.
But finally she and her teammates got to celebrate a win. And maybe Clark got some time to appreciate what she'd done. "It is a special accomplishment," she said. "but it doesn't happen without everyone in the locker room.''
4 мар 2023
