NCAA Women’s Basketball National Championship: Iowa vs. LSU — Open Thread, Time, TV, How to Watch

In an NCAA Tournament already rife with storylines, Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes, with their upset victory over undefeated #1 South Carolina Gamecocks, found a way to make even more.

[2] Iowa Hawkeyes vs. [3] LSU Tigers

2:30pm CT | ABC/ESPN+ | Iowa -3 | O/U 157
American Airlines Center (Dallas, TX)

Against Maryland transfer Angel Reese, who’s averaging 23 and 16 on the season, the Hawkeyes will have their work cut out for them. Expect G Gabbie Marshall for Iowa to run herself ragged all over again keeping up with Tigers G Alexis Morris, and be prepared for the Hawkeyes to have to extend themselves a little farther than the downright disrespectful triangle-and-two in the lane that invited South Carolina to get into a street fight on Iowa’s terms. Lisa Bluder—the ebullient high-fiver in the cover photo—deserves a world of praise on her own terms for how she’s marshalled a questionable Iowa defense into a potential national champion, and she’s certainly awoken the hordes of Iowa faithful.

But, of course, it’ll come down to the usual: can LSU possibly contain Caitlin Clark?

Unless Kim Mulkey wears something out of Gru’s closet from Despicable Me—didn’t he wear a jacket of some kind with tentacles or extra arms or something?—it’s not a matter of stopping the Hawkeyes’ ace shooter, it’s a matter of slowing her down. Clark’s made believers of most of the Big Ten and wider college basketball world: in just a few minutes we’ll see if she can complete a storybook ending.