Iowa women’s basketball fans make NCAA Tournament history

Iowa women’s basketball broke some NCAA attendance records on its way to the Sweet 16.

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Roman Slabach

Iowa center Megan Gustafson (10) family cheers her on after the Iowa/Missouri NCAA Tournament second round women’s basketball game in Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City, Iowa on Sunday, March 24, 2019. The Hawkeyes defeated the Tigers 68-52.

Jordan Zuniga, Sports Reporter

Iowa women’s basketball advanced to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Tournament while breaking attendance records.

The Hawkeyes topped Mercer, 66-61, on March 22 in front of the 13th-largest crowd for a first-round game with 10,720 fans cheering on the Hawkeyes.

The record came despite the game being at 1 p.m. on a Friday and overlapping the men’s NCAA Tournament game.

Iowa’s 68-52 second-round win over Missouri had the sixth-highest attendance for a second-round game with 12,096 fans.

To put that in perspective, the 12,096 fans who showed up was more than the combined two-day attendance numbers at 11 other sites, including Ames and College Park, Maryland.

Overall, Iowa packed a total two-day attendance of 23,096, which athletics media coordinator Aaron Blau confirmed was a new NCAA women’s record for total attendance at a first/second round site.