CLEVELAND — Iowa coach Lisa Bluder made a plea on Thursday, knowing that the ship she was trying to anchor already had sailed.
“I do not want this to be a game that’s promoted as Caitlin versus Paige, and I know it already has been. But I don’t want that,” Bluder said. “I want it to be Iowa versus UConn and let these two women do what they do best.”
Too late.
No. 1 Iowa and No. 3 UConn, the second game in the Women’s NCAA Tournament Final Four doubleheader on Friday, pits two of basketball’s brightest stars. Caitlin Clark and the Hawkeyes take on Paige Bueckers and the Huskies at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse with the winner ticketed for the national championship game on Sunday.
Iowa (33-4) is here after beating reigning national champions LSU in the Elite Eight in Albany, N.Y., a game that Clark scored 41 points in, and a game that drew a record 12.3 million viewers as the most-watched women’s college basketball game on record.
The matchup with UConn (33-5) is sure to draw a boatload of viewers, too.
It features two national players of the year going head-to-head. Bueckers was the consensus Player of the Year — earning the AP, USBWA, Wooden and Naismith honors — in 2021, while Clark swept the awards last season and accepted the AP honor on Thursday.
Clark and Bueckers have known each other for half of their lives. Clark, from Iowa, and Bueckers, from Minnesota, battled on AAU circuits in the Midwest going back to when they were in middle school. They’ve also been teammates with Team USA.
“I think the coolest thing about Paige is how resilient she is,” Clark said. “The way she carries herself on and off the court and the way she works hard, none of that has changed. She’s always worked that same way, always had that fire and been a leader.”
Clark and Bueckers last met on the hardwood in the 2021 NCAA Tournament — all of which was played in Texas due to COVID-19 restrictions — where UConn beat Iowa in the Sweet 16. Both rookies at the time, Bueckers had 18 points, nine rebounds and eight assists, while Clark had 21 points and five assists in a 20-point victory for UConn.
UConn also beat this Clark-led Iowa team without Bueckers as she recovered from knee surgery in a 2022 non-conference neutral-site clash, 86-79, during which the Huskies held Clark (25 points) to 2-of-11 from 3-point land.
“I know Caitlin. We go way back,” Bueckers said. “She’s just a competitor. She wants to win. She has the intangibles of the game. She knows how to play, great IQ. I think the biggest thing about her is she competes and she’s just a winner, she wants to win at all costs.”
The spotlight might remain locked on Clark and Bueckers, but the difference in Friday’s clash might be UConn’s skilled post player, Aaliyah Edwards. The 6-foot-3 two-time All-American averages 17.6 points and 9.3 rebounds per game this season while shooting 59.5 percent from the floor. In the Huskies’ Elite Eight win over No. 1 USC, Edwards had 24 points and six rebounds, while Bueckers had 28 points, 10 rebounds and six assists.
While Clark — the all-time leading scorer in NCAA Division I history — is a singular superstar for the Hawkeyes, Bueckers and Edwards form a powerful dynamic duo for the Huskies.
“I think one of the things that we learned is just leaning more on each other, playing more as a unit, and just playing for something bigger than just the win,” Edwards said.
Iowa – while lacking in pure size – hasn’t had a problem with frustrating powerful post players this season. In the Hawkeyes’ Elite Eight win over LSU, Angel Reese scored 17 points but she needed 21 shots to get there and fouled out with about two minutes to play. Iowa has also beaten a Virginia Tech team armed with 6-6 Elizabeth Kitley and a Kansas State squad with 6-6 Ayoka Lee.
“I think we’re going to have to play a great half-court defense, going to need to run in transition, and need to execute our offense in the half-court,” Clark said. “I think it’s all those things.”
UConn is 6-3 all-time against Iowa.
–Mitchell Northam, Field Level Media