Caitlin Clark, Iowa and the stuff of legends

DALLAS — On Feb. 26, the Iowa Hawkeyes have been 1.5 seconds away from their second consecutive loss to finish the common season. Now, they’re 40 minutes from profitable the 2023 NCAA girls’s basketball championship.

However as an alternative of shedding that recreation to the Indiana Hoosiers, Caitlin Clark launched a game-winning 3-pointer. That second and a half kick-started a nine-game profitable streak that has landed the Hawkeyes of their first nationwide championship recreation.

Since then, Clark has 235 factors, 82 assists and 52 rebounds within the postseason, profitable the Massive Ten match, the Seattle 4 Regional title and getting the upset of this NCAA match Friday night time as her Hawkeyes ended South Carolina’s 42-game profitable streak with a 77-73 victory at American Airways Middle.

In entrance of an sellout crowd that included tennis legend Billie Jean King, Clark delivered the products as soon as once more. Everybody has had an concept of cease Clark, however nobody has been capable of do it. The expectations for Clark rise each recreation, and he or she has risen to the event.

“I feel I am simply actually, actually grateful to be on this place greater than something,” Clark mentioned. “Like coach [Lisa] Bluder mentioned, in all probability everyone in America picked South Carolina, deservedly so. They have been ranked No. 1 all 12 months. They’ve gained 42 straight basketball video games. Why would not you decide them?

“However on the identical time, the individuals in our locker room believed in us. That is all you want is a perception in each other, a confidence in each other. We simply do it for the individual to our left and our proper.”

And when you could have somebody like Clark beside you, it is simple to imagine. In a match that within the final 30 years has seen epic particular person performances from the likes of Sheryl Swoopes, Chamique Holdsclaw, Diana Taurasi, Candace Parker, Maya Moore, Breanna Stewart and Aja Wilson, Clark has already put her title among the many greats with this NCAA match run.

With Iowa’s first Closing 4 in 30 years in sight within the regional closing vs. the Louisville Cardinals on March 26, Clark delivered a masterpiece: a 41-point, 10-rebound, 12-assist triple-double that had her title trending on Twitter for a number of days afterward. It would proceed after Friday’s tour-de-force: 41 factors, once more, together with eight assists in opposition to the very best protection in Division I girls’s basketball.

Her teammates and Bluder say nothing Clark does surprises them anymore. They see the magic in follow every day. The lengthy 3-pointers, the pull-up jumpers, the drives to the rim, the mushy pictures off the glass, the passes lengthy and brief that may make followers gasp at their brilliance.

And when the lights are the brightest, Clark’s mild get brighter nonetheless. Longtime Iowa assistant coach Jan Jensen has been watching Clark play since she was in junior excessive.

“Caitlin is simply wired in a different way,” Jensen mentioned within the Iowa locker room. “She’s obtained a confidence about her. With Caitlin, you’ll be able to simply see it in her eyes. She leans into moments. She needs them. She has practiced the moments since she was little.

“She is aware of basketball. She watches the lads’s recreation, she is aware of the ladies’s recreation. She is aware of her craft. She mentioned, ‘I am going Iowa. I’ll take them to a Closing 4. She mentioned this when she was in highschool. And the place are we now?”

Teammate Kate Martin mentioned typically she has to remind herself she’s enjoying alongside somebody who may very nicely be within the early phases of one of many nice careers in girls’s basketball historical past.

When Clark went to the foul line twice within the final 14 seconds for high-pressure free throws to seal the victory, Martin wasn’t nervous.

“I’d take her on the line all day over anyone on the planet,” Martin mentioned. “I am pleased with her. She deserves all the popularity. I see it on a regular basis. I do know I am going to respect it much more when sooner or later once I’m older and I am wanting again and considering, ‘Wow, that was my teammate.’”

Clark has another recreation to realize the last word: A nationwide championship. The second-seeded Hawkeyes face the No. 3 seed LSU Tigers, which beat the top-seeded Virginia Tech Hokies 79-72, on Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC).

However for Friday night time, she and her teammates needed to get pleasure from one other unforgettable night time.

“It is so enjoyable to play along with her actually,” Iowa ahead Monika Czinano mentioned. “Getting to look at that each single day, attending to be part of it, you’ll be able to’t make it up. It is one of many coolest issues I am going to ever do in my life. I like it.”