Ohio State earned their first top-10 win of the season on Sunday, taking down No. 2 Iowa in a 100-92 overtime victory.

The 18th-ranked Buckeyes overcame a 12-point deficit in the fourth quarter, with sophomore Cotie McMahon scoring a career-high 33 points alongside 12 rebounds. Iowa star Caitlin Clark had a season-high 45 points, including all nine of the Hawkeye’s points in overtime. Iowa is now 0-3 when Clark scores that many points.

Fans at the game – which totaled over 18,000 – stormed the court afterward, with Clark inadvertently colliding with Buckeye a fan as she jogged toward the tunnel.

“I could see they were storming the court, which was totally fine – good for their students, great win for them,” Clark said after the game, describing the collision as being “blindsided.”

“Kind of scary, could have caused a pretty serious injury to me, and knocked the wind out of me,” she continued. “But luckily my teammates kind of picked me up and got me off the court. … “It just comes with the territory. I’m sure they tried their best to do whatever they could. Obviously it didn’t work, and that’s disappointing. Just focused now on the game and ways we can get better.”

Clark added that Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith had apologized to her for the incident, which she “really appreciated.” Iowa coach Lisa Bluder, meanwhile, was a little more upfront about her disappointment.

“That just should not happen,” Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said. “Our players should be safe. They should be able to walk off the floor. That’s very disappointing. Ohio State, great team, great environment, but obviously very disappointed with the postgame with our players getting injured trying to walk out of the gym. That’s wrong.”

Buckeye head coach Kevin McGuff agreed that the collision “shouldn’t happen to anybody” in his postgame press conference.

“Such a spectacular performance today and she’s such a great player, and that should never happen,” McGuff said after beginning his news conference by apologizing to Clark. “I feel really badly. Hopefully, she’s OK and it doesn’t affect her moving forward. That’s extremely unfortunate.

“It shouldn’t happen to anybody, but man, such a great player like Caitlin, you really hate that. I know we had security, but a student apparently beat the security, so I really feel badly about that.”

He later applauded his team for their effort in the win.

“We beat an incredible team with one of the best players to ever play our sport, and we did it in front of 18,000 people,” McGuff said. “So hopefully the significance is we can really build on that with the momentum.”

Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer became the all-time winningest coach in NCAA basketball history on Sunday.

The Cardinal defeated Oregon State 65-56, giving VanDerveer her 1,203rd career victory. She passed former Duke men’s coach Mike Krzyzewski.

“I’m very appreciative of all the great players I’ve coached and the great places I’ve been and the attention this brought to women’s basketball,” VanDerveer said. “I’m not always really comfortable in the limelight, but I understand that that kind of goes with the job.”

Following the game, Krzyzewski congratulated VanDerveer in a statement, after having held the record since 2019.

“This is a tremendous accomplishment for Tara VanDerveer, who is already one of the most accomplished coaches in the history of basketball. This is yet another milestone to add to an amazing legacy,” Krzyzewski said. “More important than all the astounding numbers and career accomplishments, she’s positively impacted countless lives as a coach and a mentor. Tara remains a true guardian of our sport.”

Whether or not VanDerveer holds on to the record will be determined by how long she stays coaching. UConn women’s head coach Geno Auriemma trails her by seven wins and is the third-winningest NCAA basketball coach. The deciding factor for who will finish on top could wing up being who simply stays in coaching the longest.

VanDerveer has been a head coach at the collegiate level since 1978. She began her head coaching career at Idaho before heading to Ohio State. She’s been head coach of Stanford since 1985, an astounding 38 seasons.

In that time, she’s won three NCAA tournament titles, including Stanford’s most recent in 2021. She’s coached the Cardinal to 13 Final Four appearances and 14 Pac-12 Conference tournament championships.

Already, VanDerveer has been inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011. She also coached the 1996 Olympic women’s national team to a gold medal.

“I like to say that I’ve never felt that coaching basketball was a j-o-b, job,” she said. “I can’t wait to come into the gym. I love coming to practice, love coming to the games and it’s fun. I get to wear sneakers to practice and the games, and all of you, our fans, are so fantastic.”

Roughly 30 of her former players – including Jayne Appel, Jennifer Azzi, Ros Gold-Onwude and Chiney Ogwumike – were in attendance.

“I told our team, I said, ‘This is what feels like winning a national championship,'” VanDerveer said of the win in front of a home crowd. “You’re just so excited and you’re so happy. I would like to build on this and get better.”

Auburn women’s basketball took down No. 7 LSU 67-62 on Sunday night, ending the Tiger’s 16 game winning streak. It was LSU’s second loss this season after a season-opening loss to Colorado.

The defending national champions entered the game with the nation’s best scoring offense, but Auburn held their opponents to a season low in points.

Auburn forced 15 turnovers, including one from JaMya Mingo-Young that sealed the game as she stripped LSU’s Angel Reese.

“That’s what we’ve been working on, just when she gets the ball just crowd her,” Mingo-Young told ESPN postgame. “I didn’t do it the whole game. But I just knew she couldn’t see me when she spins, so I went and got the ball.”

“This one was on me,” Reese wrote on social media. “We good! Geaux Tigers!”

Auburn coach Johnnie Harris said that the team had been working on that exact play all week.

“We guarded that play all week,” Harris said. “We knew, from the way [Reese] caught the ball, what she was going to do. We knew that she was going to drive it in that situation. … Once she put it down, we knew she was going to score. She wasn’t going to pass it.”

The win was Auburn’s first over a top-10 opponent since beating No. 4 Tennessee on Jan. 27, 2022. It also was the largest crowd the Tigers had ever hosted in the history of their women’s basketball program, with 7,720 people showing up.

“Honestly, I don’t know if they were there for us, or if they were there just to see LSU,” Honesty Scott-Grayson, who led the team with 21 points, said. “But we knew we had to go out there and put on a show, either way. We weren’t backing down from [LSU] just because of the name.”

To LSU coach Kim Mulkey, the outcome of the game was simple.

“We knew Auburn would get in lanes and pressure you and make it hard to complete a pass,” Mulkey said. “Energy and enthusiasm, [Auburn] just came at us. … Their effort was better than our effort.”

Elsewhere, No. 9 USC upended No. 2 UCLA’s perfect season behind a JuJu Watkins double-double. The loss leaves South Carolina as the nation’s only undefeated team left.

Rebecca Lobo had some high praise for Caitlin Clark.

Clark had a 29-point triple-double last Friday in Iowa’s win over Rutgers, coming off of four-straight games in which the Iowa star had 35+ points, tying the NCAA record. Her recent run of play had ESPN broadcaster Rebecca Lobo drawing some lofty comparisons.

“I think Caitlin Clark, scoring aside, barring injury will become the No. 1 scorer in women’s college basketball,” Lobo said at halftime of the South Carolina game. “I think she’s the best offensive player we’ve seen in women’s college basketball in 20 years, since Diana Taurasi.

“And it’s not just her ability to score. It’s not just the 31 points a game, her ability to assist. The real separator to me is the range that she has on her shot because it makes her that much more unguardable. … Best offensive player we have seen in 20 years.”

The Hawkeyes star is on track to break the all-time women’s scoring record for NCAA basketball held by Kelsey Plum. Since Taurasi, others have come through the NCAA ranks like Maya Moore, Candace Parker, A’ja Wilson and Plum. Lobo recognized that on social media, but still held firm in her comments.

“There have been some great offensive players in WCBB the last 20 years (Seimone Augustus, Maya Moore, EDD, Breanna Stewart, Kelsey Plum),” she wrote. “I believe @CaitlinClark22 is the best player on the offensive end since Diana Taurasi.”

Even still, the comments did draw some ire from others, including current WNBA player Lexie Brown.

“The erasure of recent college greats is mind boggling to me,” she wrote on social media. “I can’t stand it.”

Elizabeth Kitley delivered big on Sunday, helping No. 13 Virginia Tech upset previously undefeated No. 3 NC State with a last-second layup.

The layup came off of a cross-court inbound pass from Cayla King, leaving less than a second left for NC State to respond and avoid the upset. But the Wolfpack were unable to deny the Hokies of their victory.

Kitley finished with 27 points for Virginia Tech, who rallied from a 13-point deficit in the second half for their seventh-straight win. It was also their 19th straight win at home.

“I think we’ve gone over that play multiple times in practice,” Georgia Amoore said, calling the play “Old Faithful.” “And you know, Cayla has great vision and great accuracy with that pass, and I knew that it’s worked before. So, I was very, very confident.”

“Coach [Kenny] Brooks is really good in those situations, and he had something in his back pocket,” Kitley said. “Cayla had an absolute dime of a pass and it ended up working out for us.”

The Hokies’ coach said the team “needed” the win after two early season losses to ranked opponents.

“We just kind of like dug in and said, ‘Hey, we’re not trying to prove anybody wrong,” Brooks said. “We’re just going to continue to prove ourselves right,’ and that worked for us last year, and it continues to work for us.”

“It came down to just willing yourself to win,” he added. “A game like that, a win like that, is like feeding a monster because I think people are going to continue to come back.”

For the Wolfpack, it was their first loss this season. It also leaves just three undefeated teams left in women’s college basketball: No. 1 South Carolina, No. 2 UCLA and No. 6 Baylor.

“I think the heartbreaking thing is we have a lot of respect for their program, and you’re two seconds away from beating them on the road,” NC State coach Wes Moore said. “That’s heartbreaking. As a coach, you think I could have done something different, and we’d have won that game.”

The NCAA has signed a new 8-year, $920 million dollar media rights deal with ESPN for 40 of its NCAA championships, Front Office Sports reported on Thursday.

The deal includes the women’s March Madness tournament, which through the deal is valued at $65 million. The average payout of the deal per year sits at $115 million. That triples the price of the current package, which averages $34 million a year for 29 championships. It also rectifies the undervaluation of the women’s NCAA tournament, which was at the heart of a gender inequity report.

Working with the NCAA on the deal was Endeavor’s IMG and WME Sports.

While the number is under the estimated $81-$112 million valuation floated around about the women’s basketball tournament, it reportedly reflects the status of the market when it came time for negotiations. Karen Brodkin, EVP and Co-Head of WME Sports, noted that the market “is not like we’ve ever seen before.”

The valuation wound up being three times the previous deal, whereas other leagues have recently only gotten 1.2 or 1.3 times their valuation in recent deals. And opting to have the women’s basketball tournament remain bundled with other championships was in part to help out other, less popular championships.

“I wanted the best deal for everybody,” NCAA president Charlie Baker said.

While other networks were involved, the NCAA only spoke to ESPN during its exclusive negotiating window. Baker said that while Endeavor spoke with other networks, those conversations were “kind of all over the place.”

The deal will begin on Sept. 1 and end in 2032, corresponding with the end of the men’s tournament deal with CBS and Warner Bros. Discovery.

“We didn’t do a renewal,” EVP and Head of the Americas for Media at IMG, Hillary Mandel, told FOS. “This is a reset.”

In addition to adding 11 championships, ESPN has also committed to more investment in storytelling in the style of long-form, documentary-esque content.

As Iowa star Caitlin Clark hit a shot heard around the world on Tuesday night, South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley lamented the refereeing that got her there.

“Heckava shot but give the game ball to the ref for the shooting foul call,” Staley wrote on social media.

While some thought she was referring to the idea that Clark didn’t get the ball off in time, it was a questionable 3-point shooting foul that allowed Molly Davis to sink two free throws and give Iowa a 73-71 lead.

Michigan State’s DeeDee Hagemann was able to tie the game at 73, but those two points inevitably made a difference in the outcome.

Davis, for her part, joked about missing one of the free throws on purpose.

“I missed the first [free throw] on purpose so Caitlin could hit the game-winner,” she said.

Dawn Staley has a simple message for those that don’t think anyone watches women’s sports: they’re wrong.

Staley’s shirt, which read “Everyone Watches Women’s Sports,” caught the attention of social media on Saturday. Postgame, she was asked about the shirt, which she says was sent to her. But the message is simple.

“A lot of times people think that people aren’t watching,” she said, before noting that those people are wrong. “Women’s basketball and women’s sports are at an all-time high. And it’s in high demand.

“Let people know, because there are a lot of people out there that don’t think we’ve got the numbers behind our sports, when it comes to women.”

Last year’s NCAA Final Four and national championship set viewership records, with 9.9 million people tuning in to watch LSU and Iowa play. Elsewhere, the WNBA and NWSL have seen record viewership in the last year as well.

The NWSL recently signed a new media rights deal, meanwhile, both women’s college basketball and the WNBA are set to negotiate new television contracts in the coming years. The NCAA is currently exploring options for the women’s college basketball tournament – which is traditionally packaged with other NCAA sports minus the men’s tournament, and is widely considered undervalued as is.