Iowa’s Caitlin Clark and Louisville’s Hailey Van Lith gave us an epic women’s basketball battle

They were not just teammates on a variety of U.S. national basketball teams, but sometime roommates. The admiration and affection between Iowa’s Caitlin Clark and Louisville’s Hailey Van Lith is real, and runs deep.

“Great person off the court, really funny, great sense of humor,’’ Van Lith said Saturday while describing Clark. “I mean, I have supported her through her college career and she’s supported me through mine.”

But that doesn’t mean each didn’t want to bury the other one Sunday in an NCAA women’s regional game at Climate Pledge Arena, with a berth in the Final Four on the line. And so for 40 minutes, Iowa and Louisville waged a frenetic, intense and passionate battle, with those two inevitably at the forefront — and Iowa getting the ultimate celebration behind an epic performance by Clark.

It was a basketball purist’s dream — but this matchup might have been even more alluring to a casual fan who just loves to see fun, high-scoring basketball at the highest level, spiced by an individual performance that will go instantly into the annals of tournament lore.

A week ago, we had Trout vs. Ohtani. For women’s basketball fans, Clark vs. Van Lith had similar resonance. And it was Clark and the Hawkeyes who came out on top 97-83 as the junior put on a dazzling display of her all-around game.

Clark not only turned in a triple-double, the 12^th of her career, but the first one in NCAA women’s tournament history with at least 30 points — and for good measure she finished with 41 points to go with 12 assists and 10 rebounds. No men’s or women’s player in the NCAA tournament has ever had a 40-point game in a triple-double. The only player with 30 points and 10 assists in an NCAA tournament game since 2000 is Washington’s Kelsey Plum (2017), whose all-time scoring record Clark is on target to surpass.

After the clock hit zero, Clark made it a point to hunt down the game ball to save for posterity.

“I did want the game ball, so I chucked it to my dad. I hope they get out of the arena,’’ she said with a laugh. “I told them to run; I’ll get it later at the hotel.”

Iowa, which lives off its transition game, broke it open in the second half with a flurry of fast breaks and dazzling three-point shooting — and not just by Clark. By the fourth quarter, the only mysteries were whether Clark would get her triple-double, would she hit 40, and would the Hawkeyes crack triple-digits. Answers: Yes (getting her 10^th rebound in the final minute); yes, on two free throws with 27 seconds remaining that Clark punctuated with an ecstatic fist pump; and no, not quite, but Iowa could care less as it advanced to its first Final Four since 1993.

“I don’t know if it’s really sunk in yet,’’ said Iowa coach Lisa Bluder, wearing remnants of the cut-down net around her neck. “This group is amazing. To do things you love with people you love, it doesn’t get any better than that.”

“About only people who believed were me and Coach when I first committed to her,” Clark added. “A lot of people told me it would never happen when I came to Iowa. She believed in me, which is all that really mattered, and we made the locker room believe.”

Van Lith, with her large cheering section from Cashmere back on hand, finished with 27 points, but her Cardinals were no match for the offensive precision of Iowa. And, especially, they had no answers for Clark, who was feeling it from the beginning and didn’t slow down until Bluder pulled her out in the final seconds to honor her star with an ovation from the fans — and a long, heartfelt hug between the two.

Simply put, Clark is a revelation. She has the capacity to become the face of women’s college basketball, if she isn’t already. She might be the best show in college basketball, men’s or women’s. Think Pistol Pete Maravich crossed with Sue Bird (who made a surprise appearance at Iowa’s shoot-around) with a dash of Steph Curry.

Next in line for Iowa is a likely Final Four matchup in Dallas with South Carolina, which has surpassed Connecticut as the dominant force in the women’s game. But if Iowa plays at the same pace, with the same efficiency, toughness, and outside shooting touch as it did Sunday, it won’t be a given that the unbeaten Gamecocks run their record to 37-0 (provided they get past Maryland on Monday).

Clark plays with joy, flair and intensity. At various junctures, after particularly electrifying steals and/or shots, she exhorted the crowd as she ran down the court. In the final moment, when victory was apparent, a giant grin played on her face and she cupped her hand to her ear as she turned to face the cheering Iowa contingent.

Asked about how it feels to get a crowd to cheer louder on her command, she grinned again and said, “I feel kind of powerful. First of all, you have to have fans here supporting you. I thought the fans were incredible. When we go on run like that and get stops and you can feel the energy in the building, I don’t think people realize how much affects us.”

We’ll overlook the nine turnovers by Clark (she narrowly avoided an unwelcome quadruple-double); she was in the middle of everything, often trapped by Louisville, and while some of her passes were ill-advised, others were pure dimes that were mishandled by teammates. All told, Clark had a hand in 71 of Iowa’s 97 points via either her own baskets or her assists (including all 25 of their first-quarter points with 15 points and four assists). She is just the fifth player to score 40 in a regional final since 2009.

Van Lith waved off the notion that the loss will motivate the Cardinals.

“I’ll be completely honest, I’m not motivated by external factors,’’ she said. “I’m motivated by myself. And I always have been. If we would have won the national championship this year, I would have had the same amount of motivation. In the end, that’s just who I am. I’m not motivated at all by the fact that they made me honorable mention (All-American). I know who I am. And I know what God thinks I am. And God doesn’t think I’m an honorable mention. I’ll tell you that right now. So I don’t need external motivation. I’m eternally motivated.”

As for Clark, this is a performance that will be eternally remembered — and one that she savored every minute of.

“I play my best basketball when I have the most fun of anyone on the court,’’ she said.