At the NCAA® Women’s College Basketball Tournament on Monday, the Elite 8® lived up to its moniker.
In possibly the most exciting day in women’s CBB history, Caitlin Clark and Iowa outlasted the defending champions LSU to advance to the Final Four® and avenge last year’s loss in the championship game. That was followed by Paige Bueckers and perennial contender UConn defeating JuJu Watkins and USC to move on to the Huskies’ record 23rd national semifinal.
Those teams join upstart NC State and the undefeated South Carolina Gamecocks in this year’s women’s Final Four, which is set for Friday, April 5 on ESPN. Here’s a preview of both games, along with the schedule.
2024 NCAA Women’s Final Four® and Championship
North Carolina State Wolfpack vs. South Carolina Gamecocks
- Friday, April 5, 7:00pm ET on ESPN
Connecticut Huskies vs. Iowa Hawkeyes
- Friday, April 5, 9:00pm ET on ESPN
National Championship
- Sunday, April 7, 3:00pm ET on ESPN/ ABC
#3 NC State vs. #1 South Carolina
It’s odd that the nation’s only undefeated team is getting upstaged by the aforementioned superstars, but South Carolina is so dominant, they’re almost boring. Sure, after squandering massive leads against Indiana and Oregon State, they’ve had a couple of scares. But perfect is perfect, and with tremendous depth (a different player has led the Gamecocks in scoring in all four tournament games) and great poise, South Carolina is still the team to beat.
To reach the national championship, they’ll have to get past NC State. This is the Wolfpack’s first Final Four since 1998, and like the counterparts in the men’s Final Four, they’re playing their best basketball at the right time. In the past two rounds, NC State has had to get through No. 2 Stanford and No. 1 Texas, and behind the surging scoring average of Aziaha James, they won both of those games by double digits. With these teams leading the tournament in scoring, expect a shootout.
#3 UConn vs. #1 Iowa
It’s Caitlin Clark’s world, the rest of us just live in it. In Monday’s instant classic against LSU, Clark scored an NCAA tournament record-tying nine 3-pointers, while dishing out 12 assists to claim yet another record (most assists in NCAA Tournament history). She finished with 41 points, and as ESPN points out, the Hawkeyes aren’t just high-scoring, they’re very efficient: Iowa leads the country in “points per play, points per scoring attempt, 2-point field goal percentage, effective field goal percentage and assists per game.”
They’ll face a UConn team that somehow has not won a national championship since 2016. After missing last year’s tournament with injury, Paige Bueckers has been brilliant throughout March Madness. Her box score against USC (28 points, 10 rebounds, 6 assists) is all the more impressive given that Bueckers was tasked with guarding Trojans star JuJu Watkins for much of the contest. UConn head coach Geno Auriemma is already a legend, but given the Huskies’ injuries (five players are out, whittling down their rotation to just six players), some think this is his best coaching job in what’s already a Hall of Fame career. This game feels like it could be an all-timer.
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