| National championship game | |||||||||||||||||||
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_(cropped).jpg) Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse before the game | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Date | April 7, 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Venue | Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, Cleveland, Ohio | ||||||||||||||||||
| MVP | Kamilla Cardoso, South Carolina | ||||||||||||||||||
| Favorite | South Carolina by 6.5 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Referees | Brenda Pantoja, Joseph Vasily, Angelica Suffren | ||||||||||||||||||
| Attendance | 18,300 | ||||||||||||||||||
| National anthem | Michelle Brooks-Thompson | ||||||||||||||||||
| United States TV coverage | |||||||||||||||||||
| Network | ABC | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Nielsen Ratings | (18.7 million)[1] | ||||||||||||||||||
The 2024 NCAA Division I women's basketball championship game was the final game of the 2024 NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament. It determined the champion of the 2023–24 NCAA Division I women's basketball season and was contested by the Iowa Hawkeyes from the Big Ten Conference and the South Carolina Gamecocks from the Southeastern Conference. The game was played on April 7, 2024, at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland, Ohio. South Carolina defeated Iowa 87–75 to capture the third national championship in program history. Iowa finished as runner-up for the second season in a row.
Iowa scored the game's first ten points and led by seven points at the end of the first quarter behind an NCAA championship-record eighteen points from Caitlin Clark. South Carolina started the second quarter scoring seven consecutive points to tie the game, 27–27, and South Carolina's Kamilla Cardoso gave her team the lead with five minutes left in the half. Shots made by both teams kept the game close and the Gamecocks took a three-point lead into halftime after baskets by Te-Hina Paopao and Raven Johnson. The South Carolina lead was stretched to nine points shortly into the third quarter and a Johnson three-point field goal pushed it to eleven points before a layup by Sydney Affolter brought the Hawkeyes' deficit back to nine. The start of the fourth quarter saw South Carolina take a thirteen-point lead, shortly followed by three-pointers by Clark and Gabbie Marshall. The end of the fourth quarter saw a 7–0 run by South Carolina that finalized their championship victory, 87–75.[2]
South Carolina's Cardoso was named Most Outstanding Player (MOP) following her 15-point, 17-rebound performance in the championship game. Iowa's Caitlin Clark became the first player to score 30 points or more in two championship games.
- ^ "South Carolina-Iowa women's final is top hoops game in five years". April 8, 2024.
- ^ "Decades in the making, South Carolina-Iowa final was a perfect finish". The Washington Post. April 8, 2024. Retrieved April 9, 2024.