The LSU Tigers and Iowa Hawkeyes will meet in the NCAA Women’s Basketball National Championship Game on Sunday afternoon at the American Airlines Center.
LSU is in the championship game in just its second year under head coach Kim Mulkey. The Tigers came from nine points down in the fourth quarter to beat one-seed Virginia Tech in Friday’s semifinals and earn their first-ever Final Four win as Angel Reese and Alexis Morris both scored over 20 points.
“I came home for lots of reasons,” Mulkey reflected in a press conference after the game. “One, to someday hang a championship banner in the PMAC. Never, ever do you think you’re going to do something like this in two years.”
Iowa is the first Big Ten team to reach the women’s national championship since Michigan State lost to Mulkey and Baylor in 2005. The Hawkeyes pulled off a stunning upset of undefeated South Carolina behind 41 points from AP Player of the Year Caitlin Clark.
“I’m so proud of my women because I think they’re the only people that really believed,” head coach Lisa Bluder told the media after the game. “I don’t think anybody else, unless you were in black and gold, believed that we were going to win that game.”
Neither team has previously won the national title, so whoever wins will be a first-time champion.
“It is so exciting, ” Mulkey told the media on Saturday. “I don’t even know how old LSU is. I don’t even know when they started playing men’s or women’s basketball, but it has to be a long time ago. And to think all those great players that have played in the NBA and the WNBA, and they never played for a national championship. That’s mind-boggling to me.”
Coach Mulkey is in the championship game for the fourth time as a head coach and looking to win her fourth title. Meanwhile, Iowa would become the first Big Ten basketball team — men’s or women’s — to win a national championship since Michigan State won the men’s title in 2000.
Iowa knows it faces a tall task but is not allowing that to cause any discouragement.
“We’re just going to keep believing,” Bluder emphasized on Saturday. “We have one more game to our season. Our team was just thrilled we get to spend two more days together. Honestly, I think that’s what they were most excited about. They’re playing for a national championship, and they get to spend two more days together.”
Iowa and LSU have met three times, with Iowa holding a 2-1 edge.
The women’s national championship game tips off at 2:30 p.m. CT.
