Caitlin Clark Earns Third Consecutive Big Ten Player of the Year Award
She did it again. For the third consecutive season, Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark has been named the Big Ten Player of the Year.
Clark, a finalist for every major national player of the year award, became the NCAA's all-time leading scorer (3,685 points) over the weekend. She previously broke the all-time scoring record for women's basketball in the NCAA era as well as the "real" record held by Lynette Woodard and set in the AIAW era that preceded the NCAA.
She is the Big Ten's all-time leader in scoring, assists, field goals made, and three-pointers made. This season she's also broken the Big Ten and NCAA single-season records for three-pointers made (162 and counting). She is the first and only Division I player to have 3,600+ points, 1,000+ assists, and 850+ rebounds in a career.
Of course, the Big Ten Player of the Year award is meant to reflect a season's accomplishments rather than career achievements -- though Clark has been especially brilliant this season. She leads the Big Ten in scoring (32.3 ppg), assists (8.7 apg), and three-pointers made (162). She's 7th in the league in rebounding (7.3 rpg) and steals (1.7 spg). She also ranks 6th in free throw percentage (.851) and 12th in overall field goal percentage (.465).
With the win, Clark becomes the fourth player overall -- and the first non-Ohio State player -- to have won the award three or more times. Center Jessica Davenport (2005-07) and guard Kelsey Mitchell (2014-15, 2016-17, 2017-18) won three Big Ten Player of the Year honors for the Buckeyes, while center Jantel Lavender (2007-11) is the only player in women's basketball history to win four Big Ten Player of the Year awards.
Clark's win also continues Iowa's recent dominance of the award. Iowa players have been named Big Ten Player of the Year in six of the past seven seasons. Megan Gustafson earned Big Ten Player of the year honors in 2017-18 and 2018-19 while Clark's predecessor at point guard, Kathleen Doyle, was named Big Ten Player of the Year in 2019-20.
With Clark's win, Iowa now has 10 Big Ten Player of the Year honors, second only to Ohio State's 15 PoY honors in conference history. An Iowa or Ohio State player has received Big Ten Player of the Year honors in 16 of the past 20 seasons.
The Big Ten also named all-conference teams on Tuesday. In addition to being the unanimous selection for Big Ten Player of the Year, Clark was also a unanimous pick to the All-Big Ten first team. Indiana's Mackenzie Holmes was also a unanimous first team selection.
Kate Martin and Hannah Stuelke were each named to the All-Big Ten second team by coaches and media. Stuelke ranks 13th in the league in scoring (14.4 ppg) and 11th in rebounding (6.9 rpg), as well as 2nd in the league in field goal percentage (.644). Martin ranks 20th in the league in scoring (13.0 ppg) and 15th in rebounding (6.4 rpg) and is widely known as "The Glue" for the Iowa team. She does a little bit of everything for the Hawkeyes and does it all at a high level.
The full list of Big Ten individual honors and All-Big Ten teams is available here.