Over the last two seasons, Caitlin Clark was the face of women’s basketball – maybe even all of college basketball. The Iowa star helped draw record crowds and TV audiences as the Hawkeyes made another run to the national championship game and she broke record after record.
That also meant the expectations kept getting higher for Clark as her career went along. It seemed like the bar kept rising. When she passed Kelsey Plum for the NCAA women’s all-time scoring record, the next step was to pass Pete Maravich for the Division I mark. When she did that, the debate became if she needed to win a championship to achieve true greatness.
The pressure also increased, and she admitted she felt it at times. But she got through it by relying on her coaching staff and teammates during the run to Cleveland.
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“I think there was definitely points in my career where you can kind of feel the pressure, but Coach [Lisa] Bluder always tried to remind me pressure is a privilege and I’m so lucky to be in this moment,” Clark told Elle Duncan on SportsCenter. “I think more than anything just the confidence. This is a team sport. That’s always what I relied on, and I had so many people around me supporting me. That’s what I always just fell back on.”
Caitlin Clark: ‘Everybody knows’ women’s basketball will keep growing
Women’s basketball’s popularity soared this season, with Final Four ticket prices surging and multiple viewership records broken ahead of the national championship. Clark has been at the forefront of it all as she rewrote the record book, breaking both the NCAA women’s and Division I scoring records as part of her decorated senior season.
Now, she’s off to the WNBA as the likely No. 1 overall pick to the Indiana Fever. But when she looked back on how many more people are tuning in to women’s basketball, Clark said that’s what she’ll take away from her final year at Iowa.
“When I think about women’s basketball going forward, obviously it’s just going to continue to grow, whether it’s at the WNBA level, whether it’s at the college level,” Clark said. “Everybody sees it. Everybody knows, everybody sees the viewership numbers. When you’re given an opportunity women’s sports just kind of thrives, and I think that’s been the coolest part for me on this journey.”
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