University of Iowa basketball star Caitlin Clark became the NCAA women’s career scoring leader Thursday night in classic Caitlin Clark style: she stood up parallel to the logo at center court and nailed a three-pointer. this went straight through the circle. He did this just two minutes into the match, and the basket he scored accordingly created the score line. Clark 8, Michigan 6.
Relating to: Caitlin Clark becomes NCAA women’s basketball all-time scoring leader
In the end, Clark’s teammates also scored a few baskets. Only after that did Clark continue to score goals as he was a complement. He scored a career-high 49 points in a 106-89 home win over Michigan, accounting for 46% of Iowa’s total. It was the most points ever scored by an Iowa player in a game, breaking the record Clark set earlier this season.
Clark’s 3,569 career points (and counting) set the new gold standard, putting her ahead of former Washington guard Kelsey Plum, who had 3,527 points. (Pete Maravich’s five-decade-old men’s Division I record of 3,667 points isn’t that far off.) Women’s college basketball has produced so much brilliant talent over the years that the 22-year-old Clark isn’t universally acknowledged as the greatest player in the world. Sports fans never agree on such matters anyway. There are lawsuits to be filed for Breanna Stewart of Connecticut and Cheryl Miller of Southern California. But in terms of pure offensive electricity, there has never been a player quite like Clark in either men’s or women’s college basketball. He’s a scoring threat from almost anywhere on the court; His ability to prepare exceptional passes to teammates is almost as strong as his ability to score goals, and he was surprisingly consistent throughout his four seasons in Iowa City.
Clark, a native of the state capital Des Moines, was a gift to the Hawkeyes when he committed to the program in 2020. A year before her college career began, Iowa landed National Player of the Year honors for forward Megan Gustafson. Somehow, Clark has gone on to have an even more productive career, earning the same honor last year and looks set to repeat this season. Clark has always been a prolific scorer since averaging 27 points as a freshman in 2020-21, good enough to make the All-America team his junior year.
But the steady, gradual improvement in Clark’s game has made him an all-time superstar over the past few seasons. This year he averaged a career-best 33 points on his best shooting percentage ever.
Clark is by far the most famous player in college basketball, men’s or women’s. Not since Zion Williamson played at Duke in 2019-20 has the sport seen an athlete capture hearts and minds, or more accurately capture social media feeds, the way Clark has. Williamson earned his fame with the highlight reels of incredible alley-oops and dunks he accomplished throughout his high school career. She was a national figure before she even went to college. Clark’s rise was different; He was one of the top members himself, but his consistent theater appearances throughout his four-decade career made him a household name.
No one can define an entire sport, at least not since Tiger Woods rebuilt golf in his own image. But Clark remains front and center during a boom time in women’s college basketball. Every Iowa game is either a sellout or (in the case of away games) an opportunity for a team to break its own women’s basketball attendance record. It achieved massive TV ratings, with audiences of up to 2 million watching some Iowa games. (Almost all of this season’s most-watched women’s matches were Clark’s). Nearly 10 million viewers watched last year’s national championship game against LSU in the NCAA tournament, which LSU won. Clark will try once again for the title this year and will attract even more attention.
Clark is the avatar of a period of rapid growth in women’s football. She is one of several female college athletes who have built a massive following on social media and a portfolio of high-profile endorsements, including Gatorade, Nike and Goldman Sachs. Growing interest in stars like Clark has helped take the sport to new commercial heights, as evidenced by the NCAA women’s basketball tournament backing a lucrative new television deal with ESPN. (Number crunchers determined the tournament was worth $65 million a year to the network, roughly three times its previous value.)
Before long, Clark will be the No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft. He will almost certainly play his pro games with the Indiana Fever, who earned the top pick in December’s draft lottery, and will hope to get just a fraction of the massive job boost Clark has provided to a college program that is currently filling its arena. nightly. Caitlin Clark’s job is to score basketball points with incredible efficiency; It’s something he does better than any other player in NCAA history. And the business of college basketball generally now revolves around how many people will watch it on any given night.