Iowa coach Lisa Bluder revealed she did not get a good look at the controversial referee's decision to call an offensive foul against UConn's Aaliyah Edwards. reached a second consecutive national championship game with a 71-69 win at the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland, Ohio, on Friday night. But with five seconds remaining and possession of the ball, Huskies forward as Nika Muhl attempted to pick out Paige Bueckers for what could have been a game-winning shot. However, the referee's call handed over possession to the Hawkeyes gave a chance to ice the game from the free throw line. The 22-year-old all-time points scorer made good use of the free throws and effectively ran down the clock by throwing the ball off Paige Bueckers' legs. The smart play reduced the clock to under one second and the ball was shortly thrown up in the air allowing the Hawkeyes to celebrate their triumph. "I really didn't see the offensive call at the end," Hawkeyes coach Bluder admitted. "I was kind of blocked. I didn't see that. I thought that there was a lot of, like Caitlin really didn't have freedom of movement. But you know at this point that they're not going to call a lot, especially after last year when Caitlin and Angel [Reese] were on the bench [with foul trouble]. I think you're just not going to see a lot of calls happening right now.” Geno Auriemma, the 11-time national championship coach of UConn, addressed the referee's calls. Auriemma's team was called for 19 fouls compared to the Hawkeyes' nine. "I mean, there's probably an illegal screen call that you can make on every single possession," he said. "I just know that there were three or foul of them called on us and I don't think there were any called on them," Auriemma said. "So I guess we just got to get better at not setting illegal screens." Clark and the Hawkeyes will now go on to face the unbeaten South Carolina Gamecocks in the national championship game on Sunday in Cleveland. It will be a rematch of last year's Final Four matchup, which saw the Hawkeyes end the Gamecocks' 42-game winning streak. "It feels like every time we’re going into a game in this NCAA Tournament it’s like everybody wanted to see this, just one after the next,” said Clark. "It’s good for women’s
basketball. Being in this moment before gives our group a good understanding of what to expect. We know what South Carolina brings to the table. We know we’re going to have our hands full.” Clark added: "We’ll have a bunch of different things up our sleeves. We’ll try a bunch of different things. South Carolina has been the top of the top. They’re in a different league. We’re going to do everything we can to try to be right there with them.”