With a virtuoso performance, Iowa's transcendent Caitlin Clark cements her tournament legacy (2024)

SEATTLE — For 40 minutes on Sunday night, Caitlin Clark put on one of college basketball’s all-time great performances: a 41-point, 12-assist, 10-rebound triple-double, the first time such a stat-line had ever been recorded in an NCAA Tournament game. But it was not any one of Clark’s magnificent shots or breathtaking passes which her mother Anne will remember most from No. 2 seed Iowa’s 97-83 victory over fifth-seeded Louisville. The most memorable scene for Anne came minutes into the Hawkeyes’ celebration when her 21-year-old daughter scurried up to the stands and handed the game ball to her family. “Don’t let anyone take it if they try,” Caitlin told her younger brother, Colin.

Clark had ensured the ball ended up in her arms as the final buzzer sounded, with the Hawkeyes having punched a ticket to their first Final Four since 1993. She checked out of the game with 22.7 seconds to play, letting out a massive fist-pump and twice raising up her right arm to hype the crowd as she walked off. To retrieve the basketball, Clark burst onto the court in one final sprint. She darted over to senior guard Molly Davis, who dribbled out the clock. Once Clark had the ball in her hands, she cradled it, turned around and joined her teammates in a joyful mob.

Against the Cardinals, Clark put on a clinic with that basketball, one full of imaginative feeds and unguardable jump-shots. Yet ask her teammates if Clark’s performance shocked them, and their answers sound similar.

“Nothing surprises me at this point. She’s a stud,” redshirt senior forward Kate Martin said.

“No. We’ve seen it all in practice,” senior guard Gabbie Marshall added.

Senior center Monika Czinano agrees. So much so that Czinano said afterward that had someone told her Sunday morning that Clark would finish with a triple-double in Iowa’s Elite Eight victory, Czinano would have replied, “Yeah, probably.”

“To get a triple-double in this environment with everything on the line, that’s remarkable,” Clark’s father, Brent, said. But again, not necessarily surprising. “It’s her vision,” he said. “She visualized making the Final Four.”

Caitlin Clark WENT OFF in Iowa’s win over Louisville, becoming the first player in NCAA Tournament history with a 30 or 40-point triple-double.

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◻️ 41 PTS
◻️ 12 AST
◻️ 10 REB

The Hawkeyes are advancing to the women’s Final Four for just the second time in program history. pic.twitter.com/IzdMZWyuW6

— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) March 27, 2023

After a virtuosic performance, that vision is now a reality.

When Iowa coach Lisa Bluder and her top assistant Jan Jensen were recruiting Clark out of nearby Des Moines, the future Iowa legend asked the coaching duo if they would ever reach the Final Four. “You come, we’ll get there,” Jensen remembers telling Clark and her family. Despite Clark’s immediate impact, in each of her two previous seasons, the Hawkeyes fell short of their stated goal. Iowa bowed out of the 2021 NCAA Tournament in the Sweet 16, losing to Connecticut. Last season, they were upset by Creighton in a rare Round of 32 home defeat.

Clark returned for her junior season more motivated than ever before. “We used the fire of last year to drive us every moment,” she said. Her relentlessness took the form of a historic campaign. As a team, Iowa set a program record for Big Ten wins (15) and overall victories (30). Individually, Clark averaged 27.3 points, 7.3 rebounds and 8.6 assists per contest, en route to becoming the first-ever Division I player to eclipse 900 points and 300 assists.

Before every game, though, Brent doesn’t pressure his daughter to log such gaudy stat lines. Instead, he sends a simple message: “Be the quarterback, and be you.” Being Caitlin Clark might carry weight for some, but for Iowa’s transcendent star, it doesn’t. Even before Sunday’s matchup, Clark said, “It was one of the most (calm times) I’ve ever felt before a basketball game in my life.”

Louisville punched first, scoring the game’s first eight points. Clark missed her first 3-pointer and was called for a travel as Iowa fell behind early. Once she got on the board, though, hitting a layup nearly three minutes into the action, the onslaught began: She either scored or assisted on Iowa’s first 30 points. It took until the 7:44 mark of the second quarter for an Iowa basket not to have some kind of direct Clark tie. “She’s an entertainer,” Jensen said.

The freedom to showcase her variety of talents was one of the biggest reasons Clark decided to play at Iowa. The Hawkeyes, Jensen said, have a few offensive sets, but they stress how to read different situations. “We let them go and everybody’s got a green light,” said Jensen, who has been with Bluder for the last 23 years in Iowa City.

No one, though, has a greener light than Clark. She took nine first-half 3s and broke Iowa’s single-game NCAA Tournament record for made 3-pointers with just over two minutes remaining in the third quarter. Louisville had six different players guard Clark man-to-man for at least two possessions and threw out various other defensive looks in zones, box-and-ones and presses. Nothing was effective in slowing the Hawkeyes star, who set a single-game program tournament scoring record.

Of her 11 made baskets, the one Brent remembers most is the 3 Caitlin hit on the edge of the midcourt logo early in the fourth quarter. At that time, Iowa was up by 17. Clark jabbed twice, elevated over her defender and sunk the dagger 3. “It was gutsy,” Brent said.

In the locker room afterward, Clark also cited that jumper as her favorite singular shot. Like father, like daughter. “I think at that point I was feeling pretty confident,” she said.

Her belief never wavered. Though there were occasions Sunday when Jensen and Bluder told their star guard to relax and not get worked up over a perceived bad call or turnover, Clark continued firing. She weaved around defenders and threw no-look passes in transition. “Holy cow. The girl’s a maniac,” Martin said she thought to herself multiple times. As impressive, Clark knew when to push the pace and when to slow the game.

Standing around midcourt with 4:11 to play in the game and freshman forward Hannah Stuelke at the free-throw line, Clark put her arm around Marshall, who’s emerged as another Iowa sharpshooter. Iowa was up 22 points, and the two exchanged a few words and smiled. “We just knew,” Marshall said. “We stepped back a little bit.”

Less than three minutes later, with senior forward McKenna Warnock at the line, Clark enjoyed a similar moment with Martin. “We’re doing it. We’re doing it,” they told each other. The euphoria of the moment started seeping in.

Brent compared Caitlin’s relationship with Bluder to that of a “mother-daughter” bond. Jensen said that like a parent with their child, Bluder knows when to be firm with Clark and when to be loving. After 40 minutes of gameplay, they were the latter — exchanging countless hugs once red and blue confetti had fallen to the floor. “She is spectacular,” Bluder said. “A 40-point triple-double against Louisville to go to the Final Four? Are you kidding? I mean, it’s mind-boggling.”

In the early stages of Iowa’s celebration, Clark paraded her team’s new trophy around both sides of the court. And before exiting down a tunnel to the underbelly of Climate Pledge Arena, she greeted dozens of fans who had moved down to the first row of the stands seeking selfies and autographs. “You played awesome,” one yelled out. “You’re a great ambassador,” called out another. After a few minutes, Jensen, playing the role of Clark’s security guard, told a group of fans, “One more here, then she’s got to go.” Clark didn’t listen. She kept signing and posing and smiling, taking in the moment she had been instrumental in creating.

Inside the Hawkeyes’ locker room, postgame festivities didn’t fully start until Clark walked in. She had heard a plastic tarp had been put up to cover their belongings, and she wondered if Iowa (or the NCAA) was providing champagne. There was no bubbly. Nevertheless, the Hawkeyes made sure to soak each other with water.

Even amid their jubilation, Clark had control of her surroundings: She called out to the team’s managers what music to play.

A possible date with undefeated South Carolina looms upon Iowa’s arrival in Dallas. Preparations will surely ramp-up as the days near. But for Iowa fans, Sunday night was devoted to a party 30 years in the making. A maestro put on a masterclass. A dream had come true. “It’s just amazing,” Clark’s mother said. “She’d wanted this since she was a little girl.”

(Photo of Caitlin Clark: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)

Ben Pickman is a staff writer for The Athletic covering the WNBA and women’s college basketball. Previously, he was a writer at Sports Illustrated where he primarily covered women’s basketball and the NBA. He has also worked at CNN Sports and the Wisconsin Center for Journalism Ethics. Follow Ben on Twitter @benpickman