Angel Reese crumpled to the floor at midcourt and shook her head back and forth after a 102-85 victory over Iowa in front of a sellout American Airlines Center crowd of 19,482. The 102 points are a record for the championship game. The women’s NCAA tournament set an attendance record with 357,542 fans over 67 games, breaking the previous record of 334,587 established in 2003.
“About a minute 30 to go, I couldn’t hold it,” Mulkey said. “I got emotional. That’s not very like me until that final buzzer goes off. I don’t know what it was, but I lost it. So that should tell you what I think about it. Very, very emotional and tears of joy.”
Mulkey took the program from nine wins in 2020-21 to 26 in her first year to winning it all in year No. 2. She bolstered the roster through the transfer portal with Reese, formerly of Maryland, leading the way. The Baltimore native set the LSU and SEC single-season rebounding record after initially planning to transfer to Tennessee or South Carolina, but she went for a recruiting trip with Kateri Poole, fell in love and canceled all other trips.
Less than a year later, Reese was named the tournament’s most outstanding player and has a ring while setting the NCAA single-season double-double record with 34. She finished Sunday’s game with 15 points and 10 rebounds and walked into the postgame news conference announcing: “Champs walking in! Champs walking in!”
“I’m happy,” Reese said. “All year I was critiqued about who I was. I don’t fit the narrative. I don’t fit in the box that you all want me to be in. I’m too hood. I’m too ghetto. You all told me that all year. But when other people do it, you all don’t say nothing.
“So this is for the girls that look like me, that want to speak up on what they believe in. It’s unapologetically you. It was bigger than me tonight. Twitter is going to go in a rage every time. I’m happy. I feel like I’ve helped grow women’s basketball this year.”
The LSU team developed into celebrities over the season, getting calls from Lil Wayne during the tournament and getting neon green Kobe 6 Protros — nicknamed Grinches after the Dr. Seuss character — from Kobe Bryant’s widow, Vanessa.
Five players scored in double figures for LSU, with Jasmine Carson posting 22 points, Alexis Morris adding 21 and LaDazhia Williams finishing with 20.
“I beat the odds. LSU beat the odds. Coach Mulkey beat the odds,” said Morris, who played at Baylor, Rutgers and Texas A&M before landing at LSU last season. “All glory to God.”
Caitlin Clark’s spectacular run for Iowa ended with the Associated Press player of the year award but without a national championship. She finished with 30 points and eight assists and broke Sheryl Swoopes’s single-tournament points record that had stood since 1993 with 191. She also set the tournament three-point record with 32. Monika Czinano scored 13 points but fouled out with 6:25 remaining in the fourth quarter as the Hawkeyes attempted to rally.
Iowa’s magical season ended after its second trip to the Final Four in program history and with a program-record 31 wins.
“Obviously foul trouble not really what you want in a national championship game, especially for our two seniors [Czinano and McKenna Warnock] who have given so much to this program and had to finish their career on the bench,” Clark said. “It’s not something they deserved by any means.
“I thought they called it very, very tight. I don’t know about the two push-offs in the second quarter. I’m sure they saw that I pushed off and they called it and whatnot and then hit with the technical foul in the third for throwing the ball under the basket.”
LSU put on an absolute shooting clinic in the first half to go into halftime with a 59-42 lead that had its fans screeching “L-S-U! L-S-U!” The Tigers typically do their offensive work from the inside, but Reese picked up two fouls and went to the bench while her teammates picked up the slack.
Carson had her LSU teammates sprinting off the bench after she banked in a buzzer-beater before the half, her 21st point of the game. She was 5 for 5 from three-point range coming off the bench in the first half. Mulkey even joined in, running off the sideline with both arms raised to the sky.
“I would definitely say this is the game of my life,” Carson said.
LSU shot 9 for 12 from behind the arc in the first half with four different players ripping the twine. Just two games ago, in the Elite Eight, LSU beat Miami, 54-52, while shooting 1 for 12 from long range.
Iowa simply couldn’t keep up with the offensive onslaught in the opening 20 minutes despite shooting 50 percent from the field and going 6 for 11 from behind the arc itself. A bigger problem was Clark had to sit with three fouls after an incredible start, posting 16 points and five assists before the break.
“This is brutal,” Iowa Coach Lisa Bluder said. “It’s really tough to walk out of that locker room today and to not be able to coach Monika and McKenna ever again, that’s tough. I’m very grateful for the season we had, and I don’t want anything to take away from that. We played the national championship game.”
Clark and Czianano weren’t the only Hawkeyes to deal with foul trouble. Warnock also ended up fouling out. Iowa fans were audibly frustrated as Mulkey boisterously worked the officials before Clark was called for a technical foul with 1:04 left in the third quarter.
Game official Lisa Jones said in a pool report that the technical on Clark was for a delay of game after Iowa was warned earlier in the game.
Five Tigers had two fouls in the first half, and Reese sat for a long stretch, but LSU actually extended the lead.
Iowa got within seven points in the second half, but it couldn’t complete the comeback.
“These young ladies played their hearts out,” LSU alum and four-time WNBA champion Seimone Augustus said on the court afterward. “They played possibly the best game we’ve seen all season. This is for everybody. We’ve been waiting a very long time. The support has been real. Coach Mulkey came back home. Everything has just been aligned. Now here we are with a national championship.”
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