She will face them in the Final Four, which is where she once dreamed of going

Des Moines High School Basketball Player of the Iowa Hawkeyes ’99 Senior Player and her Mom, Maya Clark, and her mom, Magic Johnson

Clark was recruited by many schools as a high school student, including Notre Dame. She told the sports network in a profile that she never heard from Auriemma or the University of Connecticut.

As a freshman, Clark was already phenomenal. With her as their star, the Iowa Hawkeyes had reached the Sweet 16. Still, they wanted more: Iowa’s first Final Four since the 1990s, and — if they dared to dream it — the program’s first-ever title.

In particular, Clark says that she idolized former UConn star Maya Moore, who went on to play in the WNBA for the Minnesota Lynx, just a few hours’ drive from Clark’s hometown of Des Moines.

“I wanted to be just like her. Clark said in a news conference last month that he didn’t attend the University of Connecticut when he was growing up.

“I wanted them to recruit me so I could say I got recruited,” he said. I loved the University of Connecticut. I think they’re the coolest place on Earth, and I wanted to say I got recruited by them.”

Ultimately, Clark committed to Iowa, where she began her career in the fall of 2020. Clark said that playing for your home state is special, even though a lot of little girls dream about going to all those blue bloods.

One reporter asked about UConn’s smothering defense; she answered with what lessons she planned to take away. “Progressing throughout my career, it’s going to be the same thing,” she said then. “So, just learning from it, getting better, finding ways to move without the ball, things like that.”

Magic Johnson said via X that he plans to watch the two women’s basketball games on Friday because the two best women’s basketball players in college will play each other.

After their national championship loss in last year’s NCAA tournament, a red-eyed Clark said she hoped her legacy would be her impact on young kids and the people of the state of Iowa.

I hope I provided them with a lot of joy. I hope this team brought them a lot of joy. She wiped her tears with a towel and said she was aware they came up one win short. We have a lot to be proud of and a lot to celebrate. It was too early at that moment, she said, to look ahead to this season.

Our goal is obviously to achieve that. Clark said Monday that they want to be there. “You have to do it one at a time.” There’s still two more there to get.”

The biggest change for Clark is her mental game. I have the basketball skills. She said that it’s been her mind that is making her better.

“I think the biggest thing has been my maturity and being able to move on from things when it doesn’t go my way,” she added. “I’m not concerned with what the other team is doing.” I’m not worried about what call the ref is making. I’m concerned about what Iowa needs.

The First Game of the Elite Eight: South Carolina vs. N.C. State in the Semi-Final Four, a Game That Was For The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

The game is a return to the Final Four for the team, which missed out last season. Auriemma said that there was something special about the USC game, which resulted in them earning a spot in the Final Four. It’s even more emotional if you know how hard it was to get here.

South Carolina is trying to stay flawless and win the third national championship in a row. Against N.C. State, they play a team with great guards that beat Connecticut and was in the semifinals of the tournament.

The country took notice when the Iowa and LSU basketball teams played in a winner take all game, drawing the second-largest audience for a college or pro basketball game on the sports network since 2012.

In the Elite Eight, the most prolific scorer in NCAA history and her powerhouse Iowa team played against LSU’s double-doubler Angel Reese and the LSU team did not fare as well.

Reese announced on her account that she was leaving college with all her wants, such as a degree and a national championship. “This is for the girls that look like me.”

The anticipation for Monday’s game was high because of stories from newspapers hundreds of miles away. The Washington Post published a multi-page profile of LSU coach Kim Mulkey, and the Los Angeles Times issued a much-criticized polemic against LSU and its players (the paper revised the column after it was called racist and sexist).

Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese’s LSU-Iowa rematch nets a record audience for ESPN

“Me and Caitlin Clark don’t hate each other. I want people to understand that. Reese said on the day before the game that it’s a super-competitive game.

Raising the stakes even more: Clark, 22, was known to be playing her final college games, having announced she’ll turn pro after this season. On Wednesday, Reese said she is also leaving college.

When it was finally time for Iowa and LSU to face off on Monday, the game quickly became a thriller, going into halftime with the score knotted at 45 points.

“I think it’s just great for the sport, just being able to be a part of history,” Reese said afterward. “Like I said, no matter which way it went tonight, I know this was going to be a night for the ages. Being able to be in a part of history is great.

“I think being so close last year, it gives you a little fire and what you need to do,” Clark said on Tuesday. She said that women’s basketball is at its best right now, and that she is lucky to be a part of it.

The ratings success of the LSU-Iowa match up is not the only success. The games of the women’s Elite Eight drew a bigger audience than last year. In addition to the UConn win over USC, there was 6.7 million viewers for JuJu Watkins.

Lindsey Darvin is an assistant professor of sport management at Syracuse University and she said that children today will never know a time when it was not possible to watch women’s sports. “They will continue to exist in a time where women athletes are as big of — if not bigger — stars than the men.”

Source: Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese’s LSU-Iowa rematch nets a record audience for ESPN

The Cleveland Cavaliers are going to be a big deal: tickets for the Final Four on Ticketmaster and AXS are steep

For anyone hoping to see the Final Four in person, ticket prices are steep. As of Wednesday, resale listings on Ticketmaster and the NCAA’s official partner, AXS, had most spots below the upper level at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, where the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers play, going for a minimum of around $1,000 each — and much higher for seats closer to the hardwood.