By RON HIGGINS, Journal Sports
ALBANY, N.Y. – With LSU’s dreams of repeating as the NCAA national champions wrecked by Iowa senior guard Caitlin Clark, Tigers’ head coach Kim Mulkey’s postgame handshake congratulatory remarks to Clark fit the occasion.
“I’m glad you’re leaving,” Mulkey told Clark. “Girl, you something else. Never seen anything like it.”
True dat, as they say in south Louisiana.
Clark, the all-time leading scorer in women’s college basketball history, had a hand in almost 70 percent of her team’s points by scoring 41 points and dealing 12 assists in a 94-87 victory in the Albany Regional 2 finals in sold-out MVP Arena.
“Every team we play throws multiple defenders at us,” said Clark, who’ll play in her second consecutive Final Four on Friday in Cleveland vs. Connecticut. “I don’t see one person for 40 minutes. And that’s what they (LSU) did. Honestly, no matter what they threw at me, I thought we always had a good answer.”
The Tigers fell apart after No. 1 seed Iowa (33-4) and No. 3 seed LSU (31-6) battled to a 45-45 halftime tie. They were outscored 24-13 in the third quarter when they missed 21 of its 26 field goal attempts including 9 of its game-total 21 missed layups.
“We always tell our players basketball is usually a game of momentum swings,” Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder said. “You’ve got to make yours ride as long as you can and hang on during theirs.
“We ended up being tied (at halftime). They (her players) were very locked in at halftime. There was a lot of belief in that locker room. There really was.”
Iowa headed into the fourth quarter with an 11-point lead, never allowed LSU to get closer than 6 points and led by as many as 14 points in the final minute.
“That third quarter (we) kind of went under, never came back up per se,” said Tigers’ sophomore guard Flau’jae Johnson, who finished with a team-high 23 points. “But it was small mistakes. Those everyday things we do in practice – a bad pass here, turnover here, defense, missed execution, transition.”
LSU junior forward Angel Reese, possibly in her final college game if she turns pro, had 17 points and 20 rebounds. Despite having a decided height advantage inside, she made just 7 of 21 field goals.
She missed 12 of her last 14 shots after hurting her ankle while stumbling into the baseline row of photographers with 8:01 left in the second quarter after fouling a driving Clark.
“I did roll my ankle on one of the cameras,” Reese said. “This (an ankle injury) is something that has been going on for a little while now. But I’m tough. I played through it, and I’m not going to make that excuse for the rest of my play for the game.”
It was a wild ride to the halftime tie.
LSU had no one who could stop Clark, who scored 19 first-half points on 3 3-pointers, 4 layups and a free throw.
“There’s not a whole lot you can do about some of the threes she hit,” said LSU grad student guard Hailey Van Lith who had a tough night defending Clark as did reserve junior guard Last-Tear Poa.
Iowa had no one who could match Reese, who scored 13 first-half points on 6 layups (half of them when surrounded by defenders) and a free throw.
After Iowa came out blazing, hitting its first 9 of 11 shots with Clark scoring or assisting on 6 buckets, the Tigers’ defense reeled the Hawkeyes back in.
A 10-0 LSU spurt in the final 3:16 of the first quarter, keyed by two Reese steals, flipped the Tigers’ 26-21 deficit to a 31-26 lead at the end of the quarter.
The next two quarters proved fatal for LSU when Iowa outscored the Tigers by a combined 43-27. It simply didn’t have the offense firepower – mostly Clark’s ridiculous 27 to 30-feet 3-point daggers – to slow Iowa.
In the second and third quarters, LSU shot a combined 22.7 percent (10 of 44) from the field including 11.1 percent (1 of 9) in 3-pointers. Iowa hit 41.7 percent (15 of 36) from the field including 40 percent from 3s (6 of 15) with Clark accounting for 5 of 10 3s.
LSU had no answer for that. Not with Johnson or freshman guard Mikaylah Williams contributing 18 points and 7 rebounds or junior forward Aneesah Morrow adding 14 points and 14 rebounds.
Almost every time Iowa needed a critical basket, Clark delivered whether it was long-distance bombs or a laser beam passes to a teammate for a fast break basket through LSU’s napping defense.
“You’ve got to guard her,” Mulkey said. “Nobody else seems to be able to guard her. We didn’t even guard her last year when we beat them. She’s just a generational player, and she just makes everybody around her better. That’s what the great ones do.”
Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com