Women's Final Four takeaways: UConn offensive foul was a foul, even if timing wasn't great

CLEVELAND — The four best teams in women's college basketball took center stage Friday night inside Rocket Mortgage Field House in the national semifinals. By the time the clock struck midnight, the championship game many people have spent the last 12 months hoping for was set.

It'll be the undefeated South Carolina looking for its third national title, including second in three seasons, against Iowa, the team that prevented it from winning that third one a year ago.

Before those two got to set their reservations for Sunday's 3 p.m. title game, they had Friday's semifinals to worry about. Both of those came down to second-half performances, although the results ended up much different.

South Carolina used a huge third quarter to run North Carolina State off the floor in a 78-59 victory. Iowa, meanwhile, needed a controversial Connecticut offensive foul and a huge rebound on a missed free throw in the final 10 seconds in a 71-69 elimination of the Huskies.

As the clock ticks down to Sunday's title bout, here's a final look at some of Friday's final takeaways.

It was a foul on Connecticut's Aaliyah Edwards … but did it need to be called

Nothing that happened Friday night will draw as much scrutiny as the offensive foul the officials whistled against Connecticut forward Aaliyah Edward with less than four seconds remaining and Iowa up 70-69. The foul, for all intents and purposes, prevented the Huskies from having a chance to win the game on a last-second shot.

The foul elicited a torrent of reactions both from UConn's players, coaches and fans in the arena, but also from all corners of social media. Most of them were, to put it kindly, not in favor of the whistle being blown there.

"No, I wasn't given an explanation," Edwards said postgame. "There was no real time to get an explanation for it. My point of view, it was pretty clean."

There was a replay view that appeared to show Edwards raising up her left elbow and making contact with Iowa's Gabbie Marshall. That would, by the letter of the law, be an illegal screen and an offensive foul.

The question, though, is whether or not the official should make that specific call in that moment on what didn't appear to be egregious contact. It was a night when the officials did seem to pick and choose when contact, especially in the post, was called against both teams.

In this case, the officials didn't let the time left and situation in the game dictate whether they blew the whistle. There's no guarantee Connecticut gets the go-ahead basket on the play, but there's no doubt the Huskies don't with that call.

Iowa women's basketball team is much more than just Caitlin Clark

Caitlin Clark finished with 21 points against Connecticut. As games go for the all-time NCAA basketball scoring leader, it was a fine performance, but one that would've easily been lost to the pages of history in a vacuum.

On Friday night, it might have been enough to get Iowa beat. Clark shot 7 of 18 for the game, including just 3 of 11 from 3-point range, and had just six points at halftime.

The reason why the Hawkeyes are still playing is because of performances by, in particular, sophomore center Hannah Stuelke and grad-student guard Kate Martin. Stuelke scored a game-high 23 points, including 11 huge points in the third quarter when the Hawkeyes managed to finally get the lead for the first time since it was 2-0 after their first trip down the court.

"I think Hannah's tremendous," Clark said. "I think it's just the confidence and belief. I think tonight she played with an energy about herself of she really could go in there and dominate. … I think this the Hannah we all know, just having that confidence within herself because we all have it in her. Just super happy for her."

Somehow, someway Connecticut became … underdogs?

Imagine someone feeling sorry for King Kong or Goliath. Now, imagine King Kong or Goliath were arguably the most successful college basketball program of the last three decades, men's or women's.

That's where Connecticut was going into Friday night's semifinal. The 33-win No. 3 seed with the record 11 national championships and 23 Final Four appearances actually felt like underdogs to the Hawkeyes, in more ways than one.

For starters, there were the multiple season-ending injuries the Huskies had overcome to get to Cleveland. For another was the fact one of the most passionate fanbases in college sports found itself playing second fiddle in the arena to the large percentage of those decked out in black and gold.

"This year was the first one — I even told the players during pregame introductions — I said this is the first time that we've come here where it feels like we're the visitors, where it feels like we're actually the underdogs and no one expects us to win," Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma said. "And we did talk about getting here was the hardest part, and you appreciate that so much.

"Today was probably the calmest that we've been in any NCAA Tournament game this year or any other year. There's a calmness about us, about what we have done and that what happened today was not going to change how we feel — until the final buzzer, then it changed everything about how you feel."

Kamilla Cardoso put South Carolina on her back early

There's an alternative universe where North Carolina State came out of the gate and staggered undefeated South Carolina in the first half. The Gamecocks certain provided the Wolfpack with the opportunity with eight of their nine players shooting 7 of 23 from the floor for 16 points over the first 20 minutes.

The issue for North Carolina State was that ninth player, 6-foot-7 center Kamilla Cardoso, went 7 of 9 for 16 points on her own. That included the first 12 South Carolina points in the second quarter, every point necessary to help it take a 32-31 halftime lead.

"I feel like I was getting good post-ups," Cardoso said, "and they were doing a good job of just being able to feed me the ball and finding me open."

Cardoso did give South Carolina a scare when she went to the locker room with 1:39 left in the first half. She appeared to injure her right ankle while going up for a shot.

However, Cardoso returned in the second half, hitting all three of her shots to finish with 22 points. Her teammates, who combined for 40 second-half points to blow the game open, never doubted she'd be back.

"She's not going to like this answer, but she's a beautiful Brazilian warrior," said guard Te-Hina Paopao, whose six third-quarter points helped key a 29-6 Gamecocks quarter to open the game up. "And she's just awesome, man. She's going to play through some pain. That's who she is, and she loves playing the game. So she's going to push through that. Knowing we have one more game, she's definitely going to be OK."

South Carolina and Dawn Staley can ruin a team in a hurry

South Carolina, somehow, came into the Final Four as maybe as anonymous an undefeated powerhouse team as one could find. All of the talk going into the event was about Clark and the Huskies' Paige Bueckers and, even, a little bit about how North Carolina State and UConn each had both its women's and men's teams in the Final Four.

The third quarter Friday was the Gamecocks reminding everyone who they really are when they're clicking. Iowa may be known for farming, but South Carolina can eviscerate an opponent with the efficiency of a farm combine.

The Gamecocks opened the third quarter on a 12-5 run to lead 44-36 with 7:08 left. That's when they turned on the jets, going on a 17-1 burst that started with a Cardoso basket 12 seconds later that truly separated the wheat from the chaff.

"I like the fact that we turned up the heat," South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said. "I mean, we put a lot more pressure on them to go deeper in their offense. We put a lot more pressure on the basketball, especially their point guards, the people that were initiating their offense.

"So if you get them to play a little bit outside of their comfort zone, you're disrupting and dictating. I thought we did a lot more of that in the third quarter that created some easy buckets for us."

Chris Easterling can be reached at ceasterling@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow him on X at @ceasterlingABJ.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Women's Final Four had bad timing, not bad call against UConn