Crossover at Kinnick was an American

exhibition An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within a cultural or educational setting such as a museum, art gallery, park, library, exhibiti ...

women's

college basketball College basketball is basketball that is played by teams of Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. In the Higher education in the United States, United States, colleges and universities are governed by collegiate athle ...

game between the

Iowa Hawkeyes The Iowa Hawkeyes are the athletic teams that represent the University of Iowa, located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. The Hawkeyes have varsity teams in 20 sports, 7 for men and 13 for women; The teams participate in Division I of the Nati ...

and the

DePaul Blue Demons The DePaul Blue Demons are the athletic teams that represent DePaul University, located in Chicago, Illinois. The Blue Demons participate in NCAA Division I and are a member of the Big East Conference. DePaul's Athletic Director is DeWayne Pe ...

. Held at

Kinnick Stadium Kinnick Stadium is a stadium located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the home stadium of the University of Iowa Iowa Hawkeyes football, Hawkeyes football team. Opened in 1929 as Iowa Stadium to replace Iowa Field, it currently holds u ...

, the home stadium of the Hawkeyes football team, the game set the women's basketball single-game attendance record (55,646). Led by reigning national player of the year

Caitlin Clark Caitlin Elizabeth Clark (born January 22, 2002) is an American professional basketball player for the Indiana Fever of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). Regarded as one of the greatest female collegiate players, Clark was tw ...

, who had a 34-point

triple-double In basketball, a double-double is a single-game performance in which a player accumulates ten or more in two of the following five statistical categories: points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocked shots. The first "double" in the term ...

, Iowa defeated DePaul, 94–72.

Background

In the 2022–23 season,

Iowa Iowa ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the upper Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west; Wisconsin to the northeast, Ill ...

reached the

2023 NCAA Division I women's basketball championship game The 2023 NCAA Division I women's basketball championship game was the final game of the 2023 NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament. It determined the national champion for the 2022–23 NCAA Division I women's basketball season and was c ...

, losing to

LSU Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as Louisiana State University (LSU), is an American Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louis ...

. The success of guard

, who earned all major national player of the year awards, drove record ticket sales for the 2023–24 team. DePaul finished with a 16–17 record and missed the NCAA tournament, before losing star forward Aneesah Morrow to the

transfer portal The NCAA transfer portal is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) application, database, and compliance tool created to manage and facilitate the process for student athletes seeking to transfer between member institutions. It is in ...

. On August 10, 2023, Iowa announced that it would host DePaul in a preseason

exhibition game An exhibition game (also known as a friendly, scrimmage, demonstration, training match, pre-season game, warmup match, or preparation match, depending at least in part on the sport) is a sporting event whose prize money and impact on the playe ...

, the school's

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

stadium, with proceeds going to the

University of Iowa Children's Hospital A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Univ ...

. In case of inclement weather, the game would be moved to Carver–Hawkeye Arena. Head coaches

Lisa Bluder Lisa Marie Bluder (, born April 16, 1961) is the former head coach of the Iowa Hawkeyes women's basketball, Iowa Hawkeyes women's basketball program. Formerly, she served as coach of St. Ambrose University and the Drake Bulldogs women's basketba ...

of Iowa and

Doug Bruno Richard Douglas Bruno (born November 7, 1950) is the Special Assistant to the Vice President/Director of Athletics for Women’s Basketball and the former head coach of the DePaul Blue Demons women's basketball team. In 2016, he completed his 30t ...

of DePaul first discussed the idea for the game during a private preseason scrimmage between their teams in the previous year. Bluder proposed the idea to Iowa interim athletic director Beth Goetz shortly after the 2023 NCAA tournament, inspired by the success of the campus celebration of the 2022–23 team, which drew 9,000 fans, and the school's Grapple on the Gridiron wrestling meet in 2015.

Game summary

Crossover at Kinnick had an attendance of 55,646, the highest for a single game in women's basketball history. The previous record was 29,619, in the national championship of the 2002 NCAA tournament between

UConn The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university system with its main campus in Storrs, Connecticut, United States. It was founded in 1881 as the Storrs Agricultural School, named after two benefactors. In 1893, ...

and

Oklahoma Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...

at the

Alamodome The Alamodome is a 64,000-seat domed indoor multi-purpose stadium in San Antonio, Texas. It is located on the southeastern fringe of downtown San Antonio. The facility opened on May 15, 1993, having been constructed at a cost of $186 milli ...

San Antonio, Texas San Antonio ( ; Spanish for "Anthony of Padua, Saint Anthony") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in Greater San Antonio. San Antonio is the List of Texas metropolitan areas, third-largest metropolitan area in Texa ...

. It was the first women's basketball game to be played in an outdoor football stadium. The game was televised on the

Big Ten Network Big Ten Network (BTN) is an American sports network based in Chicago, Illinois. The channel is dedicated to coverage of College athletics, collegiate sports sanctioned by the Big Ten Conference, including live and recorded event telecasts, news ...

, with Mike Hall on play-by-play commentary and

Christy Winters-Scott Christy Winters Scott is a basketball color analyst for college basketball games for ESPN, FSN, The Big Ten Network (BTN), Monumental Sports Network, and Raycom Sports. She has been the lead analyst for BTN Women's Basketball since 2016. She pre ...

and Meghan McKeown as color analysts. After DePaul led by three early in the first quarter, Iowa rallied and held the lead for the rest of the game. The Hawkeyes started the second quarter on a 10–3 run to extend their lead to double digits. At halftime, Iowa led 52–37, behind 24 points, seven assists and five rebounds from Caitlin Clark. They finished the third quarter with a 77–51 lead and won the game, 94–72, despite a 15–0 run from DePaul to start the fourth quarter. Clark posted a triple-double of 34 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists, while Anaya Peoples led DePaul with 19 points and five rebounds.

Aftermath

The game raised about $250,000 for the

. It drew attention to the growing popularity of women's sports, with analysts comparing it to Volleyball Day in Nebraska, an August 2023 outdoor

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

game hosted by

Nebraska Nebraska ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Ka ...

, which was the highest-attended women's sporting event of all time.

References

External links

Box score
{{Iowa Hawkeyes women's basketball navbox Caitlin Clark College basketball games in the United States Iowa Hawkeyes women's basketball DePaul Blue Demons women's basketball October 2023 sports events in the United States 2023 in sports in Iowa Iowa City, Iowa