LSU Earns 1st NCAA Championship With Win Over Iowa, Clark

Kim Mulkey returned home to Louisiana wanting to bring LSU its first basketball championship. The Hall of Fame coach did just that in only her second year at the school.

Her Tigers used a record offensive performance to beat Caitlin Clark and Iowa 102-85 on Sunday and win the first basketball title, men’s or women’s, in school history.

“I turn around and look at the Final Four banners (in the home arena), nowhere did it say national champion,” Mulkey said. “That’s what I came home to do.”

The victory made Mulkey the first women’s coach to win national titles at two different schools. She won three at Baylor before leaving for LSU two years ago.

“Coaches coach a lifetime and this is the fourth time I’ve been blessed,” Mulkey said. “Never in the history of LSU basketball, men or women, has (anybody) ever played for a championship.”

The feisty and flamboyantly dressed Mulkey, who wore a sparkly, golden, tiger-striped outfit, now has the third-most national titles behind Geno Auriemma’s 11 and Pat Summitt’s eight. Mulkey has never lost in a championship game.

“My tears are tears of joy,” she said. “I’m so happy for everybody back home in Louisiana.”

Clark, The Associated Press national player of the year, couldn’t lead the Hawkeyes to their first national title despite one of the greatest individual performances in NCAA Tournament history. The junior finished with 30 points. She scored 40 in the semifinals to knock out unbeaten South Carolina one game after she had the first 40-point triple-double in NCAA history in the Elite Eight.