The Iowa Hawkeyes women’s basketball team defeated DePaul in an exhibition on Sunday, winning by the score of 94-72.
But that doesn’t even begin to tell the entire story. Head coach Lisa Bluder had recommended playing a game outside at the home of the Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Kinnick Stadium.
This came to fruition in Iowa City with the two women’s basketball programs playing under cloudy conditions inside the football stadium. In the process, they set a women’s college basketball attendance record with 55,646 making their way inside Kinnick Stadium. It was a crazy scene.
“You know, you can have an idea and it could fall flat if nobody shows up,” Bluder said, via ESPN.com. “But, man, Hawk fans showed up today. Fifty-five thousand, breaking the record, getting to play outside. It was a dream. It really was. It was just fabulous.”
The previous record for a women’s college basketball game was 29,619 in the 2002 championship game between Connecticut and Oklahoma at the Alamodome in San Antonio. They nearly doubled it Sunday afternoon in Iowa City.
“It was a little windy,” Iowa star Caitlin Clark said. “The cold was perfectly fine. It was a bit chilly, and I’m glad we play an indoor sport. I promise I’ll never air-ball a free throw again. The wind took that one, for sure.”
Clark recorded a triple-double in the Hawkeyes victory as they look to contend for a title after losing to LSU in last season’s national championship game.