Caitlin Clark chasing history: How Iowa star can break all-time scoring record

Caitlin Clark had a lasting impression on the women’s college basketball annals.When she scored her 3,000th point in her career earlier this season. The talented guard from Iowa is now aiming for an even greater record.

Since her freshman year at Iowa in 2020–21, Clark has amassed staggering scoring totals, and she is getting closer to breaking Kelsey Plum’s Division I women’s scoring record. On January 21, despite the Hawkeyes’ first conference loss of the season to Ohio State, Clark scored a career-high 45 points in the contest. With a few games left in her senior season, Clark now has 3,351 career points, 176 fewer than Plum’s record of 3,527.

Because the 2020 season was abbreviated due to the pandemic, Clark does have one more year of eligibility remaining. Clark would almost probably eclipse the former Washington star’s career scoring record if she decided to take advantage of her option to return to Iowa for the upcoming season.

However, Clark has 16 games left in the regular season, along with games in the Big Ten Tournament and perhaps the NCAA Tournament, to reach 3,527 points if this is her final year of collegiate basketball.

So, let’s take a look at how many points Clark would need to average per game in order to break Plum’s mark and how quickly she can get there (assuming she plays every game).

How many points per game would Clark need to score in order to surpass Plum’s mark by the end of the regular season?

Clark needs to average 17.7 points per for the remaining games if she wants to surpass Plum’s record and put it behind her by the time the 2024 Big Ten Tournament begins.

For any collegiate basketball player, scoring that many points in a game is a difficult feat, but not for Clark. This season, she is averaging 31.7 points per game, which is 5.6 points per game more than Division 1’s second-leading scorer. Out of Iowa’s first 20 games this season, Clark has scored at least 18 points in all but one of them.

How many points per game would Clark need to score in order to surpass Plum’s mark prior to the NCAA Tournament?

The conference tournament’s seeding determines this.

Right now, Iowa leads the Big Ten standings. Clark would need to average 13.6 points per game to surpass Plum’s record if the team secures one of the top four seeds going into the conference tournament, which is all but guaranteed, and advances to the championship round.

To surpass Plum’s record before the NCAA Tournament, Clark would have to score 14.8 points per game if Iowa had been a top-four seed and lost in the semifinals. Clark would have to surpass Plum’s record with an average of 16.1 points per game if Iowa lost in the quarterfinals.