Iowa Senior Caitlin Clark recently moved into fourth place on the NCAA women’s basketball career scoring list passing Brittney Griner. Yet, Griner is not the only player Clark has passed on a record list this year. Clark hit a buzzer-beating 3-pointer from Iowa’s half-court logo to secure a 76-73 victory over the Michigan State Spartans. This shot earned Clark her 10th 40-point game of her career, breaking a tie with former Missouri State guard Jackie Stiles for the most of any Division I player across the past 25 seasons.
As the 23-24 college basketball season progresses, Clark continues to dominate the league. She is currently averaging 37.8 points per game, the highest average in women’s college basketball this season.
Despite her large scoring average, scoring points is not the only skill Clark brings to the table.
JV Girls Basketball Coach Kelsey Lewis comments on what Clark brings to the game.
“She is reliable and consistent. She works hard on both sides of the court, defensively as well as offensively. Not only is she a scorer she can facilitate and distribute the ball just as well.” Lewis said.
On Dec 30, Clark became the Big Ten’s all-time assist leader after she had 10 assists against Minnesota. Clark is now the only Division I player to have accumulated 3,000 points, 900 assists and 800 rebounds. According to CBS sports, Clark is currently projected to break the Division I women’s scoring record on Feb 22 at Indiana.
Women’s basketball fan senior Anusha Krishnan speaks on Clarks performance.
“Clark has really increased viewership for women’s basketball not just for me personally but for so many others too especially after the finals last year which brought in the most viewership for any WBB final ever,“ Krishnan said.
Impressions are a measurement of the cumulative number of viewers watching across any given telecast. According to iSpot.tv estimates, Clark’s performance helped the ESPN family of networks scare up 342.5 million adult impressions in primetime, more than doubling the 155.6 million impressions as a result of the UConn-Stanford telecast last year. According to FOX College Hoops, Indiana vs Iowa this year accumulated over 1 million viewers making it the network’s third most-watched women’s college basketball game in history.
Caitlin Clark makes an impression on her teammates as well as viewership. According to AP News, Iowa head coach Lisa Bulder said, “Caitlin has a little bit more attention but when her light shines, it shines on everybody in that locker room.” The article also highlighted her teammate Gabbie Marshall’s statement saying how Clark merits the spotlight and is a good teammate. “She wears her crown the right way,” Marshall said.
Clark has helped instill confidence in her team both on and off the court.
“From what I’ve seen, a lot of the players have stepped up to match Caitlin and help her on the court. She’s also garnered a lot of support for Iowa which gives the players positive energy to feed off of,” Krishnan said.
