Another year of thrilling basketball action and busted brackets is in the books, and it ended with the Connecticut men taking home their sixth national title, and their second in a row, with a 75-60 win over Purdue despite the Boilermakers getting 37 points from 7’4” center Zach Edey. With the win, UConn became the first team to repeat as national champions since Florida did it in 2006 and 2007. On the women’s side, South Carolina beat Iowa in the championship game 87-75 to become the tenth undefeated national champion in women’s college basketball history and get revenge against Iowa, who ruined their perfect season last year in the Final Four. This was South Carolina’s third national championship since 2017 under head coach Dawn Staley.
The men’s Final Four consisted of UConn, Purdue, Alabama, and NC State. While UConn has been a regular at the Final Four in recent years, none of the other teams had made it this far in decades. Purdue made their first appearance since 1980, NC State hadn’t made it since 1983, and Alabama had never been to a Final Four in their history. The most shocking of these teams was NC State, who made the Final Four as an 11-seed, but ultimately had their run ended by Purdue. UConn made history as the team with the largest average margin of victory in an NCAA tournament, winning by an average of 23.3 points per game, this came after UConn won all their tournament games by an average of 20 points last year. The Huskies have won every tournament game in the last 2 years by double digits, with their closest tournament win during that stretch being a 72-59 win over Miami in the national semifinal last year. UConn’s lead was only 6 points at halftime against Purdue in this year’s national championship, but they pulled away in the second half to win by 15.
South Carolina, Iowa, UConn, and NC State were the teams in the women’s Final Four, with South Carolina and Iowa both returning from last year, while UConn made their 23rd appearance in the Final Four, which is the most in the nation. NC State made their second appearance and their first since 1998. This was also the first time in history that two schools (UConn and NC State) sent both their men’s team and women’s team to the Final Four in the same season. Iowa got to their second straight national championship, they were led by Caitlin Clark, who has scored the most points in Division I basketball history and has grown the popularity of women’s basketball tremendously over the past couple of years. She scored 18 points in the first quarter of the championship game to propel Iowa to an early lead, but South Carolina responded and was able to get the win, finishing the season with a perfect 39-0 record. This was the second straight year that Iowa lost in the national championship, and Clark will be leaving the Hawkeyes without having won a title.
Both the men’s and women’s national championship games showed that great team basketball wins out over great individual performances. Purdue’s Zach Edey and Iowa’s Caitlin Clark scored 37 and 30 points respectively in their championship games, but the balanced attacks of UConn and South Carolina were too much for their opponents to overcome.
