Clark scores 33 to become highest scorer in major women’s college basketball history

Caitlin Clark has added another career record to her astonishing resume: the most points of any major women’s player to ever take the court. For Hawkeyes coach Lisa Bluder and her colleagues, this one is the most important.

Iowa’s star guard scored 33 points to lead the sixth-ranked Hawkeyes to a 108-60 romp at Minnesota, surpassing Lynette Woodard on the all-time list with 3,650 points.

“Tonight is the real record night,” said Bluder, who played for Northern Iowa from 1979-83. “For some reason the NCAA won’t recognize basketball played before 1982, and that’s wrong. We played basketball then. They just don’t want to recognize it, and that hurts the rest of us who were playing at the time. There’s no reason why this shouldn’t be the real record.”
Earlier this month, Clark passed Kelsey Plum (3,527) as the all-time leader among NCAA women. Woodard totaled 3,649 points for Kansas from 1977-81, when the sport fell under the purview of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, before the NCAA began sanctioning women’s basketball with the 1981-82 season.

“Maybe the NCAA will realize that now. Maybe it will be brought to their attention and they will recognize the women who played in the 1970s,” Bluder said. “Remember, they played with a bigger basketball and no three-point line either.”

With 4:17 left on Wednesday night, Clark buried her eighth 3-pointer of the game to pass Woodard. She also set the NCAA single-season record for three-pointers in the process and finished with the 17th triple-double of her career.

Woodard was thinking of her when she broke the record.

“I’m just very grateful and grateful to have the players that came before me. Yes, it’s super special. Obviously, she’s one of the best of all time,” Clark said. “It still shows the space we need to improve, and women’s sports is a really great place.”

Pete Maravich (3,667) is the all-time college leader for either gender, just 17 points ahead of Clark. He played for LSU from 1967-70 and, like Woodard, in the era before the three-point shot.

Pearl Moore of Francis Marion holds the overall record for women with 4,061 points from 1975-79 at the small college level in the AIAW. Moore had 177 points in high school before enrolling at Francis Marion.

There are three other minor college players from the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, including current University of Health Sciences and pharmacy security guard Grace Beyer, ahead of Clark.

A two-time Olympian and captain of the 1984 U.S. team that won the gold medal at the Los Angeles Summer Games, Woodard was a versatile player and magnetic personality who played professionally in Italy and Japan and became the first female member of the traveling hoops group in 1985 Harlem Globetrotters. She played in the WNBA in 1997-98, the league’s first two seasons, and was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2004. Woodard also spent more than three seasons as head coach at Winthrop from 2017-2020.

In an interview with ESPN on Monday, Woodard said the NCAA is doing a disservice to pre-1981 players.

“They have to respect history. Involve us and our achievements,” she said. “This is the era of diversity, equality and inclusion. They should involve us. We deserve it.”

Next up for Clark is Maravich, whom she first heard about in high school when fans and friends recommended she find grainy videos of his preening on YouTube for inspiration. She is sometimes even called ‘Ponytailed Pete’.

“It’s super special to be in the same realm of a lot of talented players who have done a lot of good things,” Clark said.