Caitlin Clark is the superstar elevating women’s basketball to unprecedented levels.
The thrilling basketball prodigy from Iowa is doing more than simply shattering NCAA records. She is at the forefront of a boom that is pushing women’s tennis to previously unheard-of commercial heights.
Kirshner, Alex
Fri., Feb. 16, 2024, 09:15 GMT
In typical Caitlin Clark form, the top player for the University of Iowa women’s basketball team pulled up parallel to the logo at center court and nailed a three-pointer that went straight through the rim on Thursday night to take the lead in NCAA women’s career scoring. Her basket, which came just two minutes into the game, appropriately set the score Clark 8, Michigan 6.
Eventually, Clark’s teammates scored a few baskets, too. Because Clark is a completist, she only kept scoring after that. She finished with a career-high 49 points, 46% of Iowa’s total, in a 106-89 home victory over Michigan. It was the most points any Iowa player has ever scored in a game, breaking a record Clark set earlier this season.
Clark’s 3,569 career points (and counting) are the new gold standard, putting her ahead of former Washington guard Kelsey Plum, who scored 3,527. (Pete Maravich’s five-decade-old men’s Division I record of 3,667 points is not that far off.) Women’s college basketball has had so many brilliant talents down the years that the 22-year-old Clark is not universally accepted as the greatest player ever, not that sports fans ever agree on such things anyway. There are cases to be made for Connecticut’s Breanna Stewart and Southern California’s Cheryl Miller, among others. But in terms of pure offensive electricity, neither women’s nor men’s college hoops has ever seen a player quite like Clark. She is a scoring threat from virtually anywhere on the hardwood, her ability to set up her teammates with outlandish passes is almost as strong as her scoring talent, and she has been stunningly consistent over her four seasons in Iowa City.
A native of Des Moines, the state capital, Clark was a gift to the Hawkeyes when she committed to join the program in 2020. A year before her college career began, Iowa graduated the National Player of the Year in forward Megan Gustafson. Somehow, Clark has had an even more prolific career, winning the same honor last year and looking like a shoo-in to repeat this season. Clark was always a prolific scorer since averaging 27 points as a freshman in 2020-21, good enough to make the All-America team in her first year.
But it is the constant, gradual improvement in Clark’s game that has made her an all-time superstar over the past few seasons. This year she averages a career-best 33 points with her best shooting percentages yet.
A native of Des Moines, the state capital, Clark was a gift to the Hawkeyes when she committed to join the program in 2020. A year before her college career began, Iowa graduated the National Player of the Year in forward Megan Gustafson. Somehow, Clark has had an even more prolific career, winning the same honor last year and looking like a shoo-in to repeat this season. Clark was always a prolific scorer since averaging 27 points as a freshman in 2020-21, good enough to make the All-America team in her first year.
But it is the constant, gradual improvement in Clark’s game that has made her an all-time superstar over the past few seasons. This year she averages a career-best 33 points with her best shooting percentages yet.
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