Women's NCAA Tournament final already different than any from the past decade
As great as Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese have been during the NCAA Tournament, Iowa and LSU are playing for a national title makes this year's final different from others in the recent past.
Sunday's final will be the first without a No. 1-seeded team since 2011 when two No. 2s played for the championship.
Texas A&M won the title over Notre Dame that season, and Iowa could follow the Aggies as the last No. 2 seed to win the tournament. LSU would be the first 3-seed to win the national title since Tennessee in 1997.
Based on seeding, few predicted this finals matchup possible. Per ESPN, only 1.1 percent of brackets had Iowa versus LSU in the championship game.
As unlikely as it might seem, it's a fitting finale because Iowa's Clark and LSU's Reese have been the two best players in the NCAA Tournament. They've been so good that both have played themselves into the record books.
Clark became the first player in women's NCAA Tournament history to have back-to-back 40-point performances. She had 41 points, eight assists and six rebounds in the national semifinals against South Carolina after becoming the first player in any tournament — men's or women's — to record a 40-point triple-double in the Elite Eight.
Per OptaStats, Clark's performances during the past two games are rivaled only by LeBron James. They are the only two players to average at least 40 points, 10 assists and eight rebounds on 50 percent shooting during a two-game span in the NCAA Tournament or NBA/WNBA playoffs.
Reese, meanwhile, became the first player in NCAA Tournament history with at least 100 points, 70 rebounds, 10 blocks and 10 steals in a single tournament. Against Virginia Tech, Reese had 23 points, 12 rebounds and three steals.
The finals will look unlike any in recent history thanks to neither the Hawkeyes nor the Tigers being a 1-seed. With the historic numbers Clark and Reese are putting up, the game itself has the potential to follow suit in being unlike anything that came before it.
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