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With South Carolina’s 87-75 win over Iowa on Sunday afternoon, the Gamecocks won their third national championship under head coach Dawn Staley and completed a perfect 38-0 season.<\/p>\n
Now that the tournament is complete, let’s take a look at some of the biggest winners and losers from the tournament as a whole.<\/p>\n
Women’s sports:\u00a0<\/strong>Not just women’s basketball. Not just women’s college basketball. But women’s sports in general.\u00a0<\/p>\n This year’s tournament seemed like a major turning point for women’s sports with record TV ratings that outdrew NBA Finals games and World Series games and new found attention in the mainstream sports discussion.\u00a0<\/p>\n It was also not just about Iowa’s Caitlin Clark. The reality is that when Steven A. Smith and social media are delivering wild and hot takes about your play, that means you are true superstars. Women’s sports has arrived.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dawn Staley and South Carolina:\u00a0<\/strong>As for this specific tournament, the biggest winner is obviously Staley and her program. With Sunday’s win Staley has led South Carolina to three championships during her tenure and two in the past three seasons.\u00a0<\/p>\n During this most recent three year run the Gamecocks have lost a total of three games, and two of them 2021-22 championship season. That is a 109-3 record over three years and 74-1 over the past two.\u00a0<\/p>\n What makes this year’s championship even more impressive is Staley had to almost completely rebuild the roster after last year’s Final Four appearance and came back even better.\u00a0<\/p>\n Kamilla Cardoso (South Carolina):\u00a0<\/strong>Cardoso was one of the driving forces behind South Carolina’s championship run, and she was at her absolute best in the NCAA tournament. She had a double-double in three of her five games in the tournament, and was an absolute force in the championship win over Iowa with 15 points, 17 rebounds and three blocks.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Pac-12’s last hurrah:\u00a0<\/strong>The Pac-12 may not exist next season, but it made quite an impact in the women’s tournament by putting five teams (USC, Stanford, Colorado, Oregon State and UCLA) into the Sweet 16.\u00a0<\/p>\n Caitlin Clark’s personal impact:\u00a0<\/strong>No, she did not get a championship to end her career at Iowa but it is hard to imagine an individual player lifting a sport more than Clark did for women’s basketball over the past two years, and especially this season. When the winning coach says this about you, that is significant.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n