For 20 minutes Monday, Iowa and LSU put on a show.
Then Caitlin Clark seized the spotlight.
The Iowa All-American and NCAA all-time leading scorer broke a 45-45 halftime tie with a deep pull-up 3 to open the third quarter. It was the first of four made 3s in the stanza for Clark as Iowa opened an 11-point third-quarter lead en route to an 94-87 win in the Albany regional final.
The win secures a berth in the Final Four for Iowa and avenges last season’s loss to LSU in the national championship game. After a record-shattering season, Clark is now two wins away from capping her college career with an NCAA championship.
Sizzling first half gives way to Clark dominance in second
The Hawkeyes and Tigers were even in the first half as Clark and Reese took co-starring roles in the most anticipated game of the season. Clark alternated deep strikes from beyond the arc with cutting drives through the LSU defense to the basket. Reese countered with control of the paint on both sides of the court, blocking shots, stealing passes and putting back offensive rebounds for buckets.
But the second half belonged to Clark. She reset the tone with her deep 3 to open the half.
Then she hit another from near the logo as a helpless Hailey Van Lith struggled to keep up on defense.
When the quarter was done, Clark had tallied 31 points and seven made 3-pointer on 14 attempts. Iowa was in control, 69-58.
LSU punched back with a 5-0 run to start the fourth quarter. But it was the Tigers’ last gasp. Clark’s eighth 3-pointer of the night extended Iowa’s lead back to double-digits, and Iowa maintained control from there.
Clark did it all on offense. When she wasn’t pulling up from deep, she put her elite playmaking on display. She finished with 41 points, 12 assists, seven rebounds and two steals. She shot 9 of 20 from 3 and 13 of 29 from the field.
She made more entries into the NCAA record book in the process. Her seventh 3 of the game was the 538th of her career and moved her into first all-time on the NCAA women’s career 3-point list past Oklahoma’s Taylor Robertson.
Her ninth tied the all-time record for 3s in a single NCAA women’s tournament game, matching Connecticut’s Kia Nurse (2017) and Purdue’s Courtney Moses (2012).
Up next, Iowa will face the winner between UConn and USC in the Final Four.
This is a developing story that will be updated.
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