Women’s NCAA Tournament: Creighton Beats Iowa to Reach Sweet 16

Tenth-seeded Creighton made its first round of 16, and it did it with late-game drama befitting the N.C.A.A. women’s basketball tournament.

Lauren Jensen, a sophomore who is in her first year playing for Creighton after transferring from Iowa before the season, shut the door on her former team on its home court in Iowa City with a go-ahead 3-pointer in the final minute to help seal a 64-62 victory over the second-seeded Hawkeyes.

“I honestly didn’t know if it was going to go in,” Jensen said after the game. “It kind of rattled off the back rim there. It wasn’t super clean, but I’m just glad it fell.”

Iowa was a popular pick to make the Final Four, mostly thanks to the eye-catching play of the sophomore guard Caitlin Clark. Clark entered the game as Division I’s leading scorer, averaging 27.4 points per game. Creighton held her to just 15 points on 4 of 19 shooting, although, with 11 assists and eight rebounds, she nearly had a triple-double.

“I’m not going to sit here and make excuses for how I played,” Clark said. “I think just coming back and working harder than I ever have is really all I can do.”

The Iowa junior Gabbie Marshall’s 3-pointer put the Hawkeyes ahead with just under seven minutes left in the fourth quarter — a lead that briefly made it look like Iowa had finally found its footing after trailing by as many as 12 points. Creighton only reclaimed the lead when there were 12 seconds left in the game, on Jensen’s 3-pointer, which gave her 9 points in the final quarter.

“Those last few minutes had to be magical and special, and we’re super proud of her and we’re super proud that she’s part of our program,” Creighton Coach Jim Flanery said.

The Hawkeyes had a few looks at a close last-second shot, but none went in. “I’ve shot a million hook shots in my life, and that one happened to not go in,” Monika Czinano, who led Iowa with 27 points, said after the game.

The Hawkeyes, typically prolific on offense, made just 35.7 percent of their attempts from the field to record their lowest point total at home since 2016.

In 2021, they were able to ride Clark’s shot to the round of 16, where they lost to Connecticut, a No. 1 seed. This year, their postseason ended in the second round, at the hands of a young group of Creighton players who held onto the lead for nearly 29 of the game’s 40 minutes.

The Bluejays’ upset win, before a sold-out crowd at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, was one of just a few first- and second-round games airing on ABC — mostly because of the buzz surrounding Clark, a semifinalist for the Naismith Trophy for national player of the year.

“That was the most special environment that I’ve ever played in by far,” the Creighton senior Payton Brotzki said.

Creighton outrebounded the Hawkeyes by 15, making it miserable for them to shoot. It was a balanced, collective effort that, in some ways, mirrored Creighton’s first-round victory over No. 7 Colorado. In that game, the Bluejays were also in control almost from the tip-off, and didn’t get flustered when their opponent showed signs of life.

This is Flanery’s 20th season as Creighton’s head coach, and the team’s fifth N.C.A.A. tournament appearance under his leadership. In the round of 16, the Bluejays will play the winner of No. 3 Iowa State’s game against No. 6 Georgia on Sunday night.

— Natalie Weiner

Top-seeded South Carolina will make its 12th appearance in the round of 16 after defeating No. 8 Miami, 49-33, on Sunday on its home court. But the win did not come easily.

Miami, which defeated Louisville, a No. 1 seed in the N.C.A.A. tournament, in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament, held the Gamecocks to 8 of 28 from the field in the first half. The Hurricanes’ defense double- and triple-teamed Aliyah Boston, South Carolina’s star forward, again and again as she struggled to find her rhythm.

But by the second half, the Gamecocks found their footing. Boston finished with 10 points and 16 rebounds to secure her 26th consecutive double-double, and she left the court to a standing ovation in the game’s final minute. Kamilla Cardoso, who left Friday’s first-round game against Howard early with an apparent injury, came back and contributed 11 points, 8 rebounds and 4 blocks.

Miami’s Maeva Djaldi-Tabdi, a graduate forward, led her team with 15 points — all of them from 3-point range. But as the Hurricanes tried to keep up, their speed sometimes got them ahead of themselves, with multiple travel calls and 19 turnovers. At one point, they had more turnovers than field goals.

While it wasn’t a perfect game for South Carolina, it was enough to push it over the edge. Coach Dawn Staley recognized that Boston, who shot 4 of 15, didn’t “make the shots she normally makes,” but said it was a learning experience for the team.

“We haven’t played through Aliyah not shooting the ball well,” Staley said after the game. “It’s a really good sign that we were able to play through that.”

Staley said “there’s a nastiness to us” when it comes to the Gamecocks’ powerful defense, a tool they can rely on when the offense falls short like it did on Sunday. “It wins basketball games.”

South Carolina will face either No. 4 Arizona or No. 5 North Carolina in Greensboro, N.C., on Friday.

— Remy Tumin

Maryland breezes past No. 12 Florida Gulf Coast.

In their second game of the N.C.A.A. tournament, the Terrapins once again looked unstoppable offensively.

Their opponents had eked out a victory over No. 5 Virginia Tech in the first round, but No. 4 Maryland was able to neutralize No. 12 Florida Gulf Coast’s trademark barrage of 3-point shots and prevented the Eagles from taking their first trip to the round of 16 with a 89-65 victory.

“We’re all 100 percent healthy, and this is how we are expected to play,” Maryland junior Diamond Miller, who led the Terrapins with 24 points, said after the game. “We’re not expected to play no other way. This is what y’all have been waiting for.”

Maryland’s roster was limited by injuries and illness over the course of the regular season. Only three players have been available for every practice and game, and three starters — including Miller — are among those who have missed chunks of the season.

“We could never get that continuity together,” Maryland Coach Brenda Frese said after the game.

But now the Terrapins appear to be clicking at the right time, showing flashes of the offense that led Division I in scoring last season. What Maryland is hoping to avoid now is a repeat of how last season ended: an upset loss in the round of 16. The Terrapins will face either No. 1 Stanford or No. 8 Kansas on Friday.

“We’re not happy right now just because we’re going to the Sweet 16, where we were last year,” Maryland sophomore Angel Reese said. “I just told them in the locker room, we don’t want the feeling that we had last year after the Sweet 16 game.”

— Natalie Weiner