Caitlin Clark, Monika Czinano, McKenna Warnock break down Final Four win over South Carolina

CAITLIN CLARK: I thought it was a tremendous game for women’s basketball. The crowd was incredible. Shoutout to all the Hawks fans that have traveled down to Dallas. They were so amazing and so loud and so fun. I don’t think we’d be at this point in the season if it wasn’t for them. I truly mean that. I know so many tuned in.

I think just tonight showed how fun women’s basketball is. Two really great teams that went at it. I’m sure so many people wish this was a series of seven games. That would be really, really fun.

I think, if we continued the series, it might go one way or the other every single time. But obviously we’d get outrebounded by quite a bit, but we didn’t hang our heads. That’s all you could do. We gave up some O boards. We fouled when we didn’t need to. We just came together and said next-play mentality, and that’s all you can do really.

MONIKA CZINANO: I think that’s a tremendous compliment coming from Coach Staley. All the credit goes to my teammates. They find me in positions that I am the most effective, and they do it game in and game out all the time. The confidence they have in me is quite unreal truly.

I’m just so proud to be on this team, yeah.

CAITLIN CLARK: I think the biggest thing is knowing how much my teammates trust me. I was given the ball in kind of the biggest moments of the game on the biggest stage, but also at the same time, my teammates really came through and played huge minutes.

I thought Addy and Hannah Stuelke were tremendous off the bench. That’s a hard position to come in when Mon gets fouls. Hannah leaks out for an easy two, Addy comes in and gets two buckets for us. And McKenna gets knocked in the head pretty well and gets the biggest O board of the game.

I understand South Carolina got 25 O boards, but there was one that mattered the most, and that was McKenna Warnock’s, and that sealed the deal for us, and we were able to make free throws.

I might score the most points, but at the end of the day, we’re aren’t anywhere without my teammates. Gabbie Marshall doesn’t score tonight, but she was outstanding. Zia Cooke is a tremendous, tremendous player. She was all over her and never got discouraged. She comes away with three steals.

Everybody did their role. That’s what our team is about. Knowing your role, doing your role, and showing up in that every single day.

McKENNA WARNOCK: Just get it to Caitlin honestly. But obviously we always want to get those O boards, and I’m glad I could come up with that one. It kind of fell in my lap. That’s what we wanted in those moments, we wanted some of those to bounce our way.

I’m glad it did in that moment, and I’m glad Caitlin knocked those free throws down.

MONIKA CZINANO: I think it was really coming out of the paint. I couldn’t really do what I normally did and just post-up down there. I had to come out and set ball screens and try to expose the screen and roll, and I think that worked out pretty well for us.

CAITLIN CLARK: I think I’m just really, really thankful to be in this position more than anything. Like Coach Bluder said, probably everybody in America picked South Carolina, deservedly so. They’ve been ranked No. 1 all year. They’ve won 42 straight basketball games. Why wouldn’t you pick them?

But at the same time, the people in our locker room believed in us. That’s all you need is a belief in one another, a confidence in one another. We just do it for the person to our left and our right.

We might not be—we’re clearly not as tall as them. We’re clearly not as athletic as them. But I think we’re a very, very skilled basketball team that loves one another, and that’s going to get you really, really far.

McKENNA WARNOCK: I think it’s just celebrate it for right now, and then we’re going to go back and watch some film. It’s just a business mentality at this point, and I think we’ve done a really good job of doing that in the past. Big Ten Tournament prepares you for this, and I think that’s kind of how we look at it.

CAITLIN CLARK: I think, like you said, I’ve seen a lot of really good defenses. The thing was we saw some weaknesses early in the game, and that’s what we kept going to. That gives a lot of credit to Coach Bluder because she kept putting us in the same action that was working.

They were guarding Mon pretty high up, and that allowed me to get to the rim. I thought we were dragging their rim protectors away from the rim, where they’re used to being. But honestly a lot of screen action. A lot of down screens, a lot of ball screens. That was something we saw in film that we thought could work, and we executed it well.

They still made it tough on me. They were all over my shorts. They created eight turnovers, a few were probably forced by myself. They’re really, really tremendous. But at the same time, I find confidence in the fact that I feel like this team has seen just about every defense you can face. I’m never intimidated going into a game. I don’t feel like these girls are ever intimidated.

We know we need to be crisp. We need to be clean. I still don’t think we shot the ball to the best of our ability. I’m 5-for-17. That’s not too hot. I probably could have made a few more. And I thought they did a good job on Gabbie Marshall. I could have gotten her another shot. I thought they were all over her. Yeah, I think it’s just the confidence we find in each other.

CAITLIN CLARK: Yeah, I didn’t have any input. Sometimes I give input, and they still don’t want it. But our coaches, they’ve been in this game a really long time. I thought they had a tremendous game plan, and obviously they’ve been working on this scout for quite some time. It’s probably very obvious that South Carolina was going to get to this point.

I loved our game plan, pack the paint. At times I wasn’t even really two feet out of the paint. We were going to live with them making threes. I thought Johnson came through and made some tough threes in situations where they really needed it, but we never got discouraged or anything like that.

I loved our game plan. We really packed the paint, made them earn it around the rim. Obviously they got some O boards, but at the same time, nobody said we were going to outrebound them. That would have been a lie.

I thought all we did was just come back down every single time and buy into our defense. And Coach Bluder switched it up quite a bit too. I thought that gave them problems. She’s always a coach, we’re never going to stay in one defense too long. You’ve got to keep switching it up.

McKENNA WARNOCK: Yeah, I think obviously coming out and getting that lead right away was really awesome. I don’t think they’ve been down much this season, and that was a great thing for us. I think we do a great job when we come out starting hot, and we definitely did this game.

I’m just really proud of our ability to kind of withstand all their runs at times and keep and maintain that lead the entire game.

CAITLIN CLARK: To be honest, I would never compare Monika to Draymond. The person on our team who I would is Kate Martin. She’s the player who does all the dirty work. Sets people up. Sets her teammate up. Is an emotional leader. They might have gotten Kate and Monika confused. Monika, not so much. We could definitely find different player comps for her.

Mon, she made some tough baskets tonight. She had a finish there at the end of the third quarter that was about as good a finish is I’ve ever seen by a post player. She had 6’7″ guarding her and makes a huge basket that gives us another two points. It comes down to it at the end. We needed that.

MONIKA CZINANO: I mean, the decision to come back was the easiest decision I’ve ever had to make quite honestly. I would have been a fool to leave this program and leave this family. I would have done it — I knew we had something to prove, but I would have done it no matter what. I would have come back with no expectations at all.

We are truly are such a family. You hear it a lot, and it gets kind of old. This is something I’ll never forget, being with this group of people and getting to do what we love to do every single day and working through adversity every single day. So no regret on my end.

CAITLIN CLARK: Just my family in the stands, that’s who I was hugging. Obviously they’ve been my biggest supporters all throughout my career. That’s one of the reasons I came to Iowa is because they wanted to be at all of my games, travel around and support. My dad comes to a lot of my stuff. Just to share the moment with them, it’s pretty special to all of us to have our families here and be on this ride with them, people that have sacrificed a lot for us.

CAITLIN CLARK: It’s incredible. But I think people tune in because they love watching the Iowa Hawkeyes. I truly believe that. I understand I’m an exciting player and people love to watch my game, but we play the right style of basketball.

We’re a skilled team. We shoot the ball well. But I think it’s the joy and the love we have for one another. We smile. We support each other. We high five. It’s incredible, and it’s special.

I think, if you want to really see a team, you look at Coach Bluder and what she’s built here at the University of Iowa. They’re teams. And that carries you a really long way.

CAITLIN CLARK: I think we have to be able to enjoy this for a moment but also reset our minds. We didn’t come this far just to play in the National Championship Game. We’re here to win it. We’re here to hoist the trophy. We’re here to cut down another championship net.

We need to take care of our bodies. We need to take care of our minds. But I think we have one of the best coaching staffs that are going to have us really, really prepared for that game. LSU is a very, very talented team. But I think we’re going to have a lot of different things that we can throw at them. We’re going to change things up. We just have to have the belief that we can win. We don’t have to change anything that we’ve done.

Dial in on player personnel and be who we are and be who we’ve been all year long.

MONIKA CZINANO: It’s really special. Obviously we get to see all the work she puts in each and every day. So when she wins this awards and is doing all this stuff, it’s not surprising to any of us. We see what goes on behind the scenes.

The way she’s grown as a teammate and a leader on this team has been really special. She really fits into our family atmosphere. She always has. Coach Bluder recruits people who she knows are going to make a team, like Caitlin said.

It’s so fun to play with her honestly. Getting to watch that every single day, getting to be a part of it, you can’t make it up. It’s one of the coolest things I’ll ever do in my life. I love it.

McKENNA WARNOCK: There’s honestly no one more deserving than Caitlin honestly. It’s been so fun to grow with her these past few years, 92 games or something we’ve started together. She just elevates everyone around you. Even I find myself just standing in awe watching her every single day.

It’s just so fun and so amazing for women’s basketball in general and Iowa Hawkeyes.

CAITLIN CLARK: I think it’s really good for our game. Like Coach Staley said, last year during the Player of the Year discussions, we need to have these discussions. That’s what gets people engaged in women’s basketball. It shouldn’t be one person end all be all. People wanted this matchup for probably for a couple years, and obviously it’s the Iowa Hawkeyes versus South Carolina. That’s what it was. We won because we were a team.

South Carolina is probably one of the deepest teams in America. So I think it’s really, really good for the game. That’s what’s going to have it going forward. I think, even when we played Louisville, people were talking about matchups, and that’s what got people excited. I think the viewership showed that as well.

I wouldn’t be surprised when these numbers come out, I think it will probably be the most watched women’s basketball game in the tournament of all time. So yeah, I think it’s good for the game. It moves it forward and gets people excited about what’s on TV.

CAITLIN CLARK: I don’t feel like I gained an advantage other than my team winning and advancing to the National Championship. That’s awesome.

Aliyah is a tremendous player. They got some tough calls on her tonight. Maybe in a different game they’re not fouls. But she was my teammate, and I know how great of a player she is but even a better person. That’s why she’s going to be the No. 1 draft pick, as she should. It’s been fun to watch her success at South Carolina and what she’s been able to build there, and I truly mean that.

But yeah, I mean, obviously it feels really good to take down a team that’s won 42 straight basketball games. That’s really, really hard to do. Nobody’s been able to do that all year. They’ve been ranked No. 1 in the polls. All we did was believe and go out and achieve it.