Caitlin Clark: the supernova driving women’s basketball to new heights

cUniversity of Iowa basketball star Aitlin Clark became the NCAA women’s career scoring leader Thursday night in classic Caitlin Clark fashion: pulling up from parallel to the logo at center court and launching a three-pointer that went right through the edge. She did so just two minutes into the game, and fittingly, her basket made the score Clark 8, Michigan 6.

Ultimately, Clark’s teammates scored a few baskets as well. Since Clark is a completionist, she just kept scoring after that. She finished with a career-high 49 points, 46% of Iowa’s total, in a 106–89 home win over Michigan. It was the most points an Iowa player has ever scored in a game, breaking a record Clark set earlier this season.

Clark’s 3,569 career points (and counting) are the new gold standard, putting her ahead of former Washington guard Kelsey Plum, who scored 3,527. (Pete Maravich’s five-decade-old record of 3,667 points in Men’s Division I isn’t that far off.) Women’s basketball has had so many brilliant talents over the years that the 22-year-old Clark isn’t universally accepted as the greatest player ever, and yet sports fans never agree. Business needs to be done for Breanna Stewart of Connecticut and Cheryl Miller of Southern California, among others. But in terms of pure offensive electricity, neither women’s nor men’s college hoops have ever seen a player like Clark. She’s a scoring threat from just about anywhere on the hardwood, her ability to set up her teammates with outlandish passes is almost as strong as her scoring talent, and she’s been stunningly consistent throughout her four seasons in Iowa City.

Clark, a native of Des Moines, the state capital, was a gift to the Hawkeyes when she committed to joining the program in 2020. A year before her college career began, Iowa graduated National Player of the Year in forward Megan Gustafson. Somehow, Clark has had an even more productive career. He won the same honor last year and seems like a shoo-in to repeat this season. Clark has been a productive scorer since averaging 27 points as a freshman in 2020-21, good enough to make the All-America team her freshman year.

But it’s the constant, gradual improvement in Clark’s play that has made her an all-time superstar over the past few seasons. This year, she is averaging a career-high 33 points with her best shooting percentages yet.

Clark is by far the most famous college basketball player, both men’s and women’s. Not since Zion Williamson played at Duke in 2019-20 has the sport seen an athlete capture hearts and minds — or, even more relevant, social media feeds — like Clark has done. Williamson rose to fame with highlights of incredible alley-oops and slam dunks, which he accomplished throughout his high school career. He was a national figure before he even went to college. Clark’s rise was different; She was a top recruit herself, but her consistent theatrics over a four-year career have made her a household name.

No single player defines an entire sport, at least not since Tiger Woods rebuilt golf in his image. But Clark is in the midst of a boom for women’s basketball. Every Iowa game is either a sellout or (in the case of away games) an opportunity for a team setting its own women’s hoops attendance record. She has racked up huge TV ratings, with audiences of up to two million tuning in to some Iowa games. (The most-watched women’s games this season were almost all Clark’s). Nearly 10 million viewers watched her last year in the NCAA Tournament national championship game against LSU, a game LSU won. Clark will make another attempt at the title this year, with even more eyeballs.

Clark is the avatar for a period of rapid growth in the women’s game. She is one of several female college athletes who have built a huge following on social media and amassed a portfolio of high-profile endorsements including Gatorade, Nike and Goldman Sachs. The increased interest in stars like Clark has helped propel the sport to new commercial heights, as evidenced by the NCAA women’s basketball tournament, which anchored a lucrative new television deal with ESPN. (Numbers determined that the tournament was worth $65 million a year to the networkapproximately three times its previous value.)

Before long, Clark will be the No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft. She will almost certainly play her professional games with the Indiana Fever, who won the rights to the top pick in December’s draft lottery, and she will hope to get just a fraction of the huge business boost Clark has given to a college program that now packs his arena every night. Caitlin Clark’s job is to score the basketball with freakish efficiency, something she has done better than any other player in NCAA history. And the business of college basketball now generally revolves around how many people will see her do that on any given night.