After Caitlin Clark’s record-setting night against Michigan last week, the NCAA women’s scoring champ was due to come back down to earth.
Clark and No. 4 Iowa did just that Thursday against No. 14 Indiana on the road as the Hoosiers blasted the Hawkeyes, 86-69. The Wooden Award favorite finished with 24 points on a tough shooting night, going 8-for-26 (3-of-16 from 3-point range) with 10 rebounds, nine assists and two steals. She was held to just four points in the second half as the Hoosiers extended their lead.
Clark admitted after the game how hard it was to get clean looks against Indiana’s mix of rotating defenders.
“I think being physical, face-guarding me, throwing a lot of different people at me, yeah, just very physical,” Clark said. “They kind of pushed me off my spots, got me out a little deeper than I wanted to be.”
After being held mostly in check on Thursday, Clark now needs 75 points to break Pete Maravich’s NCAA all-time scoring record with three games left in the regular season (home vs. Illinois, at Minnesota, home vs. Ohio State).
With the loss, Iowa drops below Indiana in the Big Ten standings at 12-3. The Hoosiers sit at 13-3 while No. 2 Ohio State leads the conference at 14-1.
Caitlin Clark’s ongoing pursuit of history
Caitlin Clark wrote a storybook ending in becoming the NCAA Division I all-time women’s scoring leader. The mark she broke on a characteristically deep “logo 3” was held for seven years by Kelsey Plum.
The next milestones well within reach for Iowa’s superstar point guard have stood for decades longer. They are attached to two basketball legends, though their status in the history books is very different.
Lynette Woodard is the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) record-holder for large schools and largely considered the all-time collegiate women’s scoring leader. She scored 3,649 points for Kansas in the late 1970s and early 1980s when the AIAW governed women’s sports. The NCAA did not sponsor them until 1982 and for the most part has omitted AIAW statistics from their record books.
Pete Maravich is the all-time NCAA Division I scoring leader with 3,667 points from 1967-70. The LSU star played when freshmen were not varsity-eligible and there was no 3-point line. His record is revered and had not been challenged until fifth-year guard Antoine Davis fell three points short of tying it last March. No player, men’s or women’s, playing in the traditional four-season window has been on pace to match or surpass the mark.
Clark reached 3,569 career points after her historic record-breaking night in Iowa City, pulling within 100 points of Woodard and Maravich.
Yahoo Sports is tracking Clark’s quest for the NCAA all-time scoring mark after every Iowa game. She has an extra year of eligibility available if she chooses to stay a fifth year. If she opts into the 2024 WNBA Draft, which is held in April, she is expected to go No. 1 to the Indiana Fever.
[Game-by-game: How Clark took the NCAA DI women’s scoring record]
Remainder of Iowa’s regular season games
Sunday: vs. Illinois (FS1, 1 p.m. ET)
Wednesday, Feb. 28: at Minnesota (Peacock, 9 p.m. ET)
Sunday, March 3: vs. Ohio State (FOX, 1 p.m. ET)
March 6-10: Big Ten Tournament
As a likely top-four seed, Iowa will play a maximum of three games beginning in the quarterfinals on March 8.
|
Games |
PPG |
FG% |
3FG% |
3s per game |
|
|
ILLINOIS |
3 |
23.6 |
43.3 (26-60) |
48 (12-25) |
4 |
|
MINNESOTA |
6 |
32.2 |
54 (67-124) |
50 (28-56) |
4.6 |
|
OHIO STATE |
6 |
33.8 |
49 (64-130) |
39.7 (29-73) |
4.8 |
Clark has scored at least 20 points in every game this season. Her only single-digit outing was as a freshman in her 10th collegiate outing (eight points vs. Northwestern). Including her program-record and personal-best 49 points against Michigan to break the all-time scoring record, she has four 40-plus point performances as a senior and 12 over her career.
Caitlin Clark’s recent scoring performances
Feb. 15: Iowa 106, Michigan 89 — 49 points (3,569 career points)
Clark needed eight points for the record and swished three shots within about two minutes to hit the mark. She went on to score a career-best 49 points that also set the Iowa women’s program record and the Carver-Hawkeye Arena record, where the men also play.
“That was never really my goal to get it done really fast, but [I] made my first couple of shots [and] was able to get another one up pretty fast,” Clark said. “It was nice to get it done there fairly quick so we could just kind of move on and focus on the basketball game.”
It was one of her most efficient performances of the year. She shot 51.6% overall and 50% from 3. Her 18 3-point attempts were tied for the second-most this season and her nine makes tied a career-high. She hit all eight free throws.
The rest of her stat line was just as packed with 13 assists, five rebounds and one steal.
Caitlin Clark can make more history
Clark’s 32.4 ppg is almost five points better than her previous career high (27.8 ppg as a junior) and slightly off the single-season record mark of 33.6 ppg set in 1989 by Mississippi Valley State’s Patricia Hoskins. At 28.3 ppg over her career, she could break the all-time mark of 28.4 ppg set by Hoskins from 1986-89.
She could also break 3-point records in the coming two weeks. Taylor Pierce holds the record for most 3-pointers in a single season (154 over 34 games in 2019) and most 3-pointers per game in a single season (4.53 in 2019). Clark has hit 143 3s this season as of Feb. 22. She’s making on average 5.3 per game, which would set the record.
She is 8 made 3s from moving into second on the all-time 3-pointer list ahead of Kelsey Mitchell (497 over 139 games). Taylor Robertson made 537 3s in 151 games at Oklahoma from 2018-23. She played five seasons under the COVID-19 eligibility waiver.
Clark is sixth all-time in assists, trailing Suzie McConnell (1,307), Andrea Nagy (1,165), Courtney Vandersloot (1,118), Sabrina Ionescu (1,091) and Tine Freil (1,088). She’s averaging 8.5 this season and 8.1 over her career.
