Iowa edges UConn in the Final Four, 71-69, and not just because of Caitlin Clark

CLEVELAND — If you tuned in to the Iowa-UConn Final Four showdown to watch a game of H-O-R-S-E between Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers, you didn’t get it.

But you did get a basketball game, of all things, and a reminder that both teams aren’t just about their biggest star.

The Hawkeyes won, 71-69, with forward Hannah Stuelke’s 23 points the game high. Clark had 21 points, seven assists, and nine rebounds. Bueckers had 17 points, and was one of three Huskies in double-figure scoring: forward Aaliyah Edwards had 17 in her last game before turning pro, and guard KK Arnold had 14.

“I think that’s one of the greatest ways our program has evolved over the course of me being here,” Clark said afterward. “I used to feel like I had to do everything and now, you know, I have so much trust in my teammates and my teammates have so much trust in me. And I just knew they were going to make plays down the stretch.”

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The sellout of 18,284, with Iowa’s fans by far the biggest caucus, obviously had its own expectations. Alas, they and everyone watched Clark shoot 3-for-11 and Bueckers shoot 3-for-9 from the field in the first half.

That surely didn’t concern Iowa coach Lisa Bluder as much as everything else in front of her. Her team trailed by 12 points midway through the second quarter, while UConn grabbed a whopping 11 steals in the first 20 minutes.

At intermission, the Huskies’ lead was down to 32-26, and a subtle moment had played a big role. Clark, so renowned for her long-range shooting, did what a smart player does when the threes aren’t falling: drive the lane for a layup. Iowa’s fans knew it, and roared to life as UConn came back up the floor.

There was another inflection point when Iowa took a 47-45 lead — its first since the game’s first basket — on two Stuelke free throws with 2 minutes, 34 seconds to go in the third quarter. The foul called then was Arnold’s fourth, and defensive leader Nika Mühl was off the court (though only briefly) with an injury.

It was 51-51 at the end of the quarter, which allowed for forgetting about any disappointments up to then. The stage was set for a grandstand finish, and the teams delivered it.

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Though Iowa was better for most of the frame, UConn hung around enough for Mühl to cut the Hawkeyes’ lead to 70-69 with 39.3 seconds left.

The Huskies surprisingly let Iowa run the clock down on the ensuing possession, but the gamble paid off when Arnold picked off a Stuelke pass with 10 seconds remaining. She got the ball to Bueckers, who promptly called timeout.

A classic ending seemed in the cards, but the officials stopped it from happening. They stunningly whistled Edwards for a too-hard screen on Gabbie Marshall with 3.9 to go. Even the Iowa fans couldn’t believe a national semifinal would be decided on a call like that.

“I wasn’t given an explanation,” Edwards said. “There was no real time to get an explanation for it. My point of view [was] it was pretty clean.”

It would be, of course, and plenty of outsiders disagreed. But Bueckers had perhaps the most impactful words on the subject.

“Everybody can make a big deal of that one single play, but not one single play wins a basketball game or loses a basketball game,” she said. “I feel there were a lot of mistakes that I made that could have prevented that play from even being that big. ... Yeah, maybe that was a tough call for us, but I feel like I could have done a better job preventing that from even happening.”

Iowa inbounded, Clark was fouled, and she made the first free throw and missed the second. Her teammate, Sydney Affolter, got the rebound, and, after one more stoppage for a jump ball, the game ended.

The Hawkeyes will face No. 1 overall seed South Carolina in Sunday’s national championship game (3 p.m., 6abc), a year after the teams met in the Final Four.

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