CEDAR FALLS — Who says no to a little history on a Sunday afternoon?
In Iowa's road game at Northern Iowa on Sunday, Caitlin Clark scored on a layup with 5:48 left in the third quarter for her 17th point of the game — and 2,806th point of her Hawkeye career, passing Hawkeye post legend Megan Gustafson (currently of the Phoenix Mercury) for the program record.
Clark finished with 24 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists as Iowa cruised, 94-53. The performance marked Clark's 12th career triple-double as a Hawkeye.
"It's an amazing accomplishment, and to do it this early in her career is absolutely amazing," head coach Lisa Bluder said. "And she does it with a triple-double today. Really proud of her, and obviously very thankful."
"Obviously it's special to do it with this group," Clark said. "[Bluder] develops really great players, but also people who want to see other people succeed, and that goes for my teammates as well. I wouldn't be in this spot if it wasn't for them, and they all celebrate it too."
"It's so gratifying because Caitlin chose to come to the University of Iowa when she could have gone anywhere in the country," Bluder said. "I'm so proud that she took a chance with us — it wasn't a huge chance, coming off an Elite Eight — but she still did. It's pretty gratifying to coach these kids. They're unbelievble."
Gustafson set her mark of 2,804 in 2019, which was good for 25th-most in college basketball history at the time. Generally, records that lofty tend to stick for a while.
Generally.
Clark, of course, was instead a force of nature from her first game at Iowa onward, averaging 26.6 points per game as a freshman and only growing as a scorer over her Hawkeye career. After Saturday's victory, Clark is averaging 32.0 points per game for the young season; at that rate, she could not only beat Gustafson's record but set the NCAA mark, currently held by Las Vegas Aces star and Washington alumna Kelsey Plum at 3,527.
"Megan's been our biggest fan on this whole journey," Clark said. "Megan reached out to me last night and said 'you're very, very deserving of this; go out there and do it.' It's not the first time Megan has reached out and texted me. She's always there supporting our entire group when we went on our run last year. And that's not fake, Megan's one of the best people of all time."
Iowa's trip to the McLeod Center on Sunday came on the heels of an 80-76 victory against No. 8 Virginia Tech, and the Hawkeyes' shooting smelled like a "trap game" in the early going as Iowa missed open looks from deep and the Panthers hung around, though Iowa never led by less than 10 after the first quarter.
The game didn't turn into a blowout until the second half, when Iowa outscored the Panthers 35-16 in the third quarter, buoyed by 6-of-7 shooting from deep after that rocky start.
Gabbie Marshall hit all three of her third-quarter triples en route to a 5-for-10 finish from behind the arc, keying her to 17 points as the game's second-leading scorer.
"In shootaround, my shot was feeling pretty good, so I'm like, 'all right, I'm going to get hot tonight'," Marshall said, after starting the season scoreless through two games. "That's what I kept telling myself, and you need that positive self-talk. That's the only way you're going to get out of a slump."
Northern Iowa relied most heavily on Taryn Wharton to guard Clark, as starting guard Maya McDermott was limited by injury; Wharton held Clark to "just 24" points on 6-for-13 shooting.
"It was definitely a challenge, and I'm always up for a challenge," Wharton said.
"Caitlin Clark's the best player in the country," said UNI head coach Tanya Warren. "You're not going to stop her, you're not going to contain her, you've just got to try to make things tough for her. I thought for the most part, Taryn did a terrific job. [Clark] is the best to put it on, and I don't know that we'll see another player like her in my lifetime."
Fortunately for the Hawkeyes, UNI's shooting was truly dismal; the Panthers made just 5 of their first 30 shots en route to a 16-for-64 performance from the field, and 2-for-19 from deep. Iowa also held All-MVC forward and preseason MVC player of the year Grace Boffeli to just 11 points and six rebounds in only 18 minutes of action, thanks in part to three early fouls on the Panther star.
"Any time you can put their best player on the bench in foul trouble, that's the easiest way to guard them," Bluder said. "If somebody's hard to guard, put 'em on the bench. I think we have a nice diversity in our post position that gives us different looks."
"It's hard to defend and it's hard to get in a rhythm when the whistle's being blown as often as it is," Warren said. "Those guys play in the Big Ten, and we're not real physical. So we've got to do a better job of adapting."
Bluder expressed similar sentiments.
"There was what, 50 fouls called in this game, that's a lot," Bluder said. "It's hard to get in a rhythm when there's 50 fouls called, it just really is. But I guess both teams have to work on being better and cleaner on the defensive end of things."
Iowa's wins over Virginia Tech and UNI have put the Hawkeyes on the precipice of their first top ranking in the AP poll since February 22, 1988, as No. 1 LSU was throttled by Colorado last Monday and No. 2 UConn lost to NC State on Sunday.
Old friends South Carolina and head coach Dawn Staley will almost certainly receive first-place votes in Monday's poll after trouncing ranked foes Notre Dame and Maryland over the week, but at No. 6 in last week's AP poll, voters may not be keen to let the Gamecocks skip over Iowa.
Don't tell Bluder any of that, of course.
"I have no idea. We'll see, we'll see," Bluder said when asked if Iowa would be No. 1 on Monday. "It really doesn't matter if we are or not. It's a long year, 30 games, a lot can happen. And what are we this week, 3? That's pretty darn good too."
With a still-unblemished record, the best player in the nation and the chops to hang with anyone in the country, though, Bluder can only deflect the hype for so long. Pressure is a privilege, as the coaches are fond of saying this year, and as long as Iowa's quieting raucous crowds and dominating foes, the Hawkeyes will be due for a lot of that privilege.
