Bill Fennelly always seems to laugh when Caitlin Clark comes up.
Ahead of Iowa State’s matchup with rival Iowa on Dec. 6, the Cyclones’ coach was asked what his team needed to do to slow down the Hawkeyes’ superstar guard.
Fennelly chuckled.
“Food poisoning or something? I don’t want anything bad, just maybe not feel great for two hours,” he said in jest.
Stopping Clark has been no laughing matter for opponents, including Iowa State. Clark poured in 35 points, passing the 3,000-point mark for her career, in Iowa’s 68-57 win.
More than a month later, Clark closes in on the all-time career scoring record held by former Washington guard Kelsey Plum.
After the No. 4 Hawkeyes’ latest triumph — a Jan. 10 win at Purdue where Clark tallied 26 points and another triple-double — she now has 3,244 for her career, good enough for fifth all-time. Still ahead of Clark are some of the biggest names in the sport: two-time gold medalist and eight-time WNBA All-Star Brittney Griner, Hall of Famer Jackie Stiles, three-time Big Ten Player of the Year Kelsey Mitchell, and Plum, who just won her second WNBA title with the Las Vegas Aces.
Fennelly, who has been the head coach at Iowa State since 1995 and coached against his fair share of exceptionally talented players – including Griner – considers Clark among the best the sport has ever seen.
“She’s on the Mount Rushmore,” Fennelly said.
He added after the Cyclones lost to the Hawkeyes for the third time during Clark’s career: “Everyone was grilling me about Caitlin and, ‘how are you going to stop her?’ And I’m like, No. 1, you can’t. And No. 2, I think she’s going to score a gazillion points.”
Clark leads the nation in scoring with 31 points per game, nearly a full five points ahead of the country’s second-leading scorer, USC freshman sensation JuJu Watkins. And while Clark might not end her career with “a gazillion” points, Plum’s record of 3,527 points is within reach.
If Clark’s scoring pace continues, she should break the all-time scoring mark around the time Iowa plays at Indiana’s Assembly Hall on Feb. 22. That game is already sold out, which has become a common occurrence for games featuring Clark. In the 32 games on Iowa’s schedule this season, 28 of them have either sold out or broke an attendance record.
Tickets at Purdue last week were available for $60 in the first four rows of the lower bowl at Mackey Arena on the resale market for games after Iowa came to town, but the sold out game against the Hawkeyes brought as much as $650 per ticket for the same seats.
Folks will travel far and wide to see The Caitlin Clark Show, where 3-pointers from the mid-court logo are common, neck-breaking assists are typical and triple-doubles are normal. Clark now has 15 triple-doubles for her career, and nine of them have featured her scoring at least 25 points. The player with the next most triple-doubles of that sort is Griner, who had just three in her career at Baylor.
Clark is also third in the country in assists per game with 7.7, and first in 3-pointers made per game with 5.0.
“A lot of teams can scheme for Caitlin and she can still have a triple-double,” said Virginia Tech guard Georgia Amoore, who faced off with Clark on Nov. 9 of this season in Charlotte, N.C.
That game in Charlotte’s Spectrum Center — home of the NBA’s Hornets — drew 15,196 fans, making it the most-attended regular season women’s college basketball game in the state of North Carolina, breaking the record of 12,722 set in 2009 when UNC hosted UConn at the Dean Smith Center in Chapel Hill.
“I’ve been in this arena before when Steph Curry was in here and it wasn’t this loud,” Virginia Tech coach Kenny Brooks said.
The game was electric. In a four-point win for Iowa, Clark scored 44 points while Amoore poured in 31. After the contest, Amoore had nothing but praise for Clark after trying to guard her for 40 minutes.
“She is a generational talent. She’s got the length. She’s got the speed. She’s literally been gifted by every single God you can imagine,” Amoore said. “She’s insane. It’s really difficult, because you can say, ‘let’s double-team her,’ or whatever, but she’s so smart that she can pick you apart.”
Clearly, Clark is unstoppable for defenders and a must-see for fans.
That is evidenced not only by the sold-out crowds she draws, but television ratings, too. A record amount of viewers, more than 9.9 million, tuned in to watch Clark’s Iowa squad face off against LSU and Angel Reese in last year’s national championship game.
When asked earlier this month about ESPN’s new eight-year deal with the NCAA for its 40 championships – including women’s basketball’s March Madness, which is valued at $65 million annually – Syracuse coach Felisha Legette-Jack pointed to the stardom of Clark and Reese.
“Our game is at another level right now,” Leggette-Jack said. “And it’s been changed by so many great players, like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, who stand on the shoulders of people like Candace Parker and Sheryl Swoopes, who really fought hard to see that people recognize women’s basketball, and now they’re getting the recognition.”
Jeff Mittie considers Clark’s star-power is a serious positive for the game. His Kansas State team has faced the Hawkeyes twice this season, once in a scheduled game in Iowa City, and another in the Gulf Coast Showcase in Estero, Fla. because of how the tournament bracket broke.
“Because the nature of what we need in our game, we need stars like that to grow the attention. It’s been fun,” Mittie said. “And it’s not just Caitlin Clark. That is a good team up and down that roster. Very talented.”
Indeed, Clark is a big reason why Iowa is 16-1 and off to its best start ever under coach Lisa Bluder, but not the only factor. Players like Kate Martin and Gabbie Marshall round out the team and make the Hawkeyes look like a squad that can contend for the national title again.
But Clark is the player that fans turn out in droves to watch. Clark is the player with a cereal named after her at Hy-Vee grocery stores. She’s the one with endorsements from big national brands like State Farm, Nike and Gatorade. Clark is the signature household name in women’s college basketball. She’s rewriting record books, making advertisers open up their checkbooks, and changing the perception of the sport.
“She’s unique in the excitement level,” Basketball Hall of Fame member and ESPN analyst Rebecca Lobo said. “When she plays, she’s one of those players that you turn on and you’re like, ‘She’s going to do something, and I don’t want to miss it.’ And so, she’s helped grow the game in a huge way. It’s a different excitement level when it’s a guard who can play like that.”
–Mitchell Northam, Field Level Media
