If you want to be the best, you have to beat the best. 

That was seemingly the message on Sunday from West Virginia women’s basketball coach Mark Kellogg when his team landed in the same regional bracket in the upcoming NCAA Tournament as No. 1 Iowa and superstar Caitlin Clark.

“I already told them, ‘Let’s win one and let’s send Caitlin Clark packing,'”Kellogg said during a Selection Sunday party.

The Mountaineers, who received the No. 8 seed, will face No. 9 Princeton in the first round of the Albany 2 bracket on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. ET, while the Hawkeyes will face the winner of the play-in game between Holy Cross and Tennessee-Martin on Sunday at 3 p.m. ET. 

West Virginia finished the regular season fourth in the Big 12, with a record of 24-7. The Hawkeyes capped their season with a Big Ten Championship title and a record of 29-4.

Clark and the Hawkeyes are no strangers to dominating in the NCAA Tournament, and judging by the year the senior is having, they will not go down without a fight in her final March Madness before she enters into the 2024 WNBA Draft. 

The Hawkeyes lost in the 2023 National Championship game, 102-85, to LSU. 

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Read more:

• 2024 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament: Top matchups, upsets, predictions
• Caitlin Clark brings ‘tremendous betting attention’ to women’s March Madness

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Women’s College Basketball

Caitlin Clark

Iowa Hawkeyes

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