No matter the venue she enters, there will be an enthusiastic audience waiting for her.
The Purdue faithful’s oohing and aahing said it all. Every time Caitlin Clark gets onto the basketball court, she finds fresh ways to surpass her previous performance, which has caught the sports world by storm.
In No. 3 Iowa’s 96-71 victory over Purdue, Clark recorded her second straight triple-double and her 15th career triple-double, scoring 26 points, grabbing 10 rebounds, and dishing out 10 assists. With 3,244 career points, Clark is well on her way to surpassing the record of 3,527 points held by former Washington standout Kelsey Plum, ranking seventh all-time in NCAA women’s basketball scoring.
Whatever number you assign to the resident of West Des Moines, Iowa, who decided to write her own narrative and stay close to home for college rather than attending Notre Dame, Texas, Duke, or Florida, the outcome will always be the same:
This little girl participated in an AAU tournament on an all-boys team, having grown up with older brothers. Clark’s parents apparently asked the tournament director over the phone not to let him play. It wasn’t the all-boys squad, though; rather, it was because of how unstoppable she was.
At every level, Clark has been the greatest player on the field, and halfway through her senior year at Iowa, she has already recorded 45 games with 30 or more points, which is a record for both men’s and women’s college basketball that dates back at least 25 years. Clark’s ability to write plays and her entire skill set are far superior to those of her competitors. Since Steph Curry won the NBA MVP award in 2015 and 2016, the sport of basketball has not had a player with this degree of consistency and ability in shotmaking.
Lead play-by-play commentator Gus Johnson of FOX Sports said of Clark, “I’ve never seen a female shoot the ball from where she’s releasing it from.” “It seems like I’m seeing a cross between Steph Curry and Pistol Pete Maravich. She moves so naturally. She enters a another dimension to play the game.”
Fans are as impassioned during the postgame scene as they are during the game itself, no matter where Clark goes. Just have a listen to this little guy who was at Mackey Arena on Wednesday night when Clark signed his shoe.
It was immediately known as the “Caitlin Clark Sweepstakes” after the Indiana Fever won the WNBA Draft lottery last month. The Iowa standout may return with an additional year of eligibility, but there.
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