The University of South Carolina women’s basketball team won the NCAA tournament. The Gamecocks had an undefeated season of 38-0. Leading up to the tournament they won the SEC title as well. They are coached by former gold medal olympian, Dawn Staley.
In the championship game they played the University of Iowa. The championship game drew more viewership than the men’s title game for the first time ever with 24.1 million viewers. The increase in viewership was because the undefeated Gamecocks were taken on Caitlin Clark, the all time NCAA leading scorer. The win in this game gave them the national title and their second NCAA win in the past 2 years. South Carolina was led by Kamilla Cardoso.
After playing a year at Syracuse, Cardoso decided to transfer to South Carolina. She led the Gamecocks to the title win with 15 points, 17 rebounds, and 3 blocks. When asked about her season in a postgame interview Cardoso said, “I made the best decision of my life coming to South Carolina.”
Just this week Cardoso was the 3rd overall pick in the WNBA draft. Dawn Staley says to CNBC “I think we are in a moment … from a place where our game has been held back to now it’s at a place where it’s bursting through the seams… I think it’s going to get better and better”.