Dawn Staley and Kamilla Cardoso lead South Carolina to the title in a historic unbeaten season

CLEVELAND — Dawn Staley has put her name in the basketball history books once again, and this time it’s one of her all-time achievements.

A year after her South Carolina program saw five players go to the WNBA draft, the Gamecocks won their third national championship and capped off the 10th unbeaten season in NCAA Division I women’s basketball history.

Led by star center Kamilla Cardoso’s 15 points and 17 rebounds, South Carolina (38-0) pulled away from Caitlin Clark’s Iowa, 87-75, in one of the great title games the sport has seen.

“I’m super excited to share this moment with our team,” Staley said afterward. “They are incredible human beings and young people who trusted, believed, figured out a way to help each other learn and grow, and ultimately become champions.”

Clark led all scorers Sunday with 30 points, and Kate Martin had 16 in what was also her last game for Iowa (34-5). Tessa Johnson led South Carolina with 19, and Te-Hina Paopao had 14.

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The Hawkeyes scored the game’s first 10 points, leading the overwhelmingly black-and-gold crowd to shake the rafters — especially when Clark capped the run with a trademark three-pointer.

It was 27-20 Iowa after the first quarter, with Clark scoring 18 points. Eleven of them came in one span of 67 seconds, and the last three came on a shot over South Carolina’s 6-foot-7 frontcourt dominator Cardoso.

But the Gamecocks are built to survive an early onslaught, then wear you down on their way back. So it surprised no one when they scored the second quarter’s first seven points, tying the score with a Cardoso and-one. Cardoso gave her team its first lead, 36-34, midway through the quarter with another perfectly-positioned layup.

It was a breathless first half: lots of scoring, plenty of defense along the way, and a relentless pace. Each team had 39 possessions at intermission, meaning there were just short of four per minute combined. South Carolina led by 49-46 at halftime, holding Iowa without a shot in the final seconds.

If you were among the 7.1 million people who watched South Carolina’s semifinal victory over N.C. State, not just the 14.2 million who watched Iowa beat UConn, you knew what the Gamecocks can do in a third quarter. When they scored the period’s first six points, it looked like they were revving up for another rout.

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There was no landslide run this time, but there was certainly one-way traffic. South Carolina led by 68-59 after the frame, holding Iowa to 5-of-17 shooting — 1-for-9 from three-point range — while shooting 8-for-13 and 3-for-5.

Now the noise came from the sections of Gamecocks fans behind their bench, all clad in maroon and black with white rally towels.

Deliberately, if not slowly, the favorite imposed its will. Iowa knew coming in that it would struggle to contain South Carolina’s depth of talent in the post, and so it proved. Cardoso, Chloe Kitts, and even 6-foot freshman guard Johnson found their way inside and scored.

Cardoso’s game was all the more impressive because she’d been hobbled for part of the semifinal after an awkward fall late in the first half. She finished that game well enough, then played Sunday as if she’d never been injured at all.

“I got a lot of treatment between yesterday and today, but I don’t think it really affected me today,” she said after being named the tournament’s most outstanding player. “I wanted to play for this team, play for our coaches, and I just wanted to go out there and play today.”

» READ MORE: Why the unstoppable Kamilla Cardoso made South Carolina the national championship favorite

Iowa refused to go away, hitting back-to-back threes to bring its fans back to deafening range. There was a sense, though, that South Carolina was playing at a higher level that the Hawkeyes would have to reach, and they did not do it. Clark and Cardoso were subbed out at the same time, with the WNBA awaiting both, and the sellout crowd of 18,300 fans knew it had witnessed history.

It’s a remarkable thing that an undefeated team got less attention than others nationwide, even if it’s not surprising. This South Carolina squad doesn’t have one individual star with the hype of Clark, Connecticut’s Paige Bueckers, Notre Dame’s South Jersey native Hannah Hidalgo, or Southern California’s JuJu Watkins.

“I don’t think that’s talked about enough, what we’ve been able to do, and I don’t know why,” Staley said, even if she likely did know why. “And I really don’t care why. We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing, the right way, whether we are [one of] the popular or unpopular successful programs in the country.”

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They are popular, rest assured. And for the third time in Staley’s tenure, they are national champions. She’s now tied with Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer for the fourth-highest total of Division I titles won by a coach. Kim Mulkey is one ahead with four, the late Tennessee legend Pat Summitt won eight, and Norristown’s Geno Auriemma of UConn has 11.

“It means that we have quietly done things, in my opinion, the right way,” Staley said, later adding: “And when you do it that way, in return, you have success. You have success in the wins column and very little disappointment in the loss column.”

In this season for the history books, South Carolina officially had zero disappointment.