Caitlin Clark Wins Wooden Award, Sweeps Player of Year Awards
The parade of individual accolades for Iowa guard Caitlin Clark continued on Tuesday, as she was named the Wooden Award National Player of the Year. The Wooden Award Player of the Year honors follow on the heels of Clark receiving the Naismith Trophy and AP Player of the Year recognition last week, giving her a clean sweep of all the major National Player of the Year Awards.
Clark, a junior from West Des Moines, Iowa, averaged 27.8 points per game, third-best in D-I, and she led the nation in assists per game (8.6) and three-pointers made per game (3.5). Clark became the first women's player in NCAA history to finish with over 1000 points (1055) and 300 assists (320) in a single season, numbers that also smashed Big Ten single season records.
Those heroic efforts led Iowa to a second Final Four in program history, the first in 30 years, as well as a historic upset of undefeated #1 South Carolina in the national semifinal and a runner-up finish to LSU in the National Championship Game.
Clark is the first Iowa women's player to win the Wooden Award. (Hawkeye legend Megan Gustafson took home several Player of the Year honors in 2019, but did not receive the Wooden Award.) Center Luka Garza is the only other Hawkeye basketball player to win the award, winning in 2021.
Clark was a finalist for the Wooden Award in 2022, but lost out to fellow repeat finalist Aliyah Boston of South Carolina. Boston repeated as a first-team All-American this season, but her averages of 13.2 points, 9.8 rebounds and 2.0 blocks per game did not match last season's productivity. Villanova's Mady Siegrist, Indiana's Mackenzie Holmes, and Stanford's Cameron Brink were the other Wooden Award finalists.
Beyond the stats, Clark took another step forward as a cultural touchstone for not only Iowa women's basketball but the sport in general.
This season, Iowa established itself as one of the nation's biggest draws for home attendance, road attendance, and TV ratings. The Hawkeyes averaged a Big Ten-record 10,705 fans per game at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, routinely drew their road opponents' biggest crowds of the year, and helped set an Elite Eight record by drawing 2.5 million viewers to their victory over Louisville. Iowa bettered that with record-shattering viewership numbers in the Final Four and National Championship Game.