Caitlin Clark revolutionises women’s basketball: We’ve never seen a woman play like this. Watch the video below!
“We’ve never seen a woman play like this”. That’s how Rebecca Lobo, former WNBA player, Olympic champion with the United States in Atlanta 1996 and current ESPN analyst, defines Caitlin Clark. Lobo is just one of millions of people who are impacted by the world’s biggest women’s basketball phenomenon.
If we tried to list Clark’s accomplishments in her NCAA career, the article would go on forever. She has been winning a multitude of individual awards for her displays in the college league for years.
But her dimension reached extraordinary heights last February 16 when she became the best female scorer in NCAA history, surpassing Kelsey Plum, and she became a world icon last Sunday when she left behind a myth like Pete Maravich to lead in points the historical college rankings. Boys and girls.
The achievement is huge because Plum was a compulsive scorer and Maravich? Well, suffice it to say that her career high had been in place and unbroken since 1970.
“It’s crazy. If someone had told me I would do this before I started my career, I would have laughed in his face and called him crazy,” said the player after her feat.
Worldwide phenomenon
Born on January 22, 2002 in Des Moines (Iowa, which is why she chose the Hawkeyes), this 1.83m point guard has revolutionised the basketball world.
To put it in context, his imminent arrival in the pros is reminiscent of the impact of players like LeBron James in his day, or more recently Victor Wembanyama. He is to girls what both are to boys. And they are in a similar dimension.
Clark has been able to turn Iowa’s games into massive events, widely followed on TV, with figures not seen since 2010 such as the 10 million viewers who watched last year’s final, but also live with ‘sold out’ tickets in her home games at the Carver-Hawkeye Arena, and also in the ones she plays as on the road.
The expectation to see Clark is such that in the game against Ohio State in which she broke Maravich’s record and finished with 35 points, tickets that were worth 408 dollars, ended up reaching a price of 5,199 dollars in the resale.
After breaking the women’s NCAA scoring record in February, her jersey became the best-selling jersey in college sports history on the Fanatics website.
And she has already signed contracts with major companies such as Nike, Gatorade and State Farm, recording commercials with sports stars such as Jimmy Butler and Patrick Mahomes.
Multidimensional player
When Lobo said that we had not seen a woman like this, he was referring, of course, to fundamentals such as shooting. Her range is the longest ever seen in women’s basketball, and she already compares to players like Stephen Curry or Damian Lillard.
But it also refers to her passing. In fact in the current NCAA she is the leader in points (32.2) and assists (8.7), something she already did in her second year in the league.
That ability to pass makes her a complete offensive player. She is the sixth highest in assists in NCAA history and there is no other player like her in the top 25 in points and assists.
Clark is the first player in NCAA Division I to reach at least 3,000 points and 1,000 assists in her career.
Now the goal, once the scoring caps have been surpassed, is to make Iowa a champion for the first time in its history. Last year they came close when they lost in the final to LSU.
“There’s a lot of games left, there are some very nice goals to achieve,” said the Hawkeyes star.
But what the world is waiting for is her move to the pros.
Clark, who had the option to continue one more year in the NCAA, has already declared herself eligible for the WNBA Draft and will undoubtedly be the number 1. The Indiana Fever will certainly be her next destination.
There they are already rubbing their hands for what she can do pairing with Aliyah Boston.
This player, whose father enrolled her when she was very young in a boys’ team because there was no girls’ team and made the team champion by making the parents of the other teams protest, is called to change women’s basketball.
She is already doing so. She is the Clark phenomenon.
