The Caitlin Clark Show Comes to Dallas
DALLAS — "There are stars," said ESPN's Ryan Ruocco as Iowa pulled away from Louisville in last week's Elite Eight romp, "and there are solar systems. Caitlin Clark is the latter."
Clark, who stamped Iowa's ticket to its first Final Four in three full decades with a record-breaking 41-point triple-double, has finally arrived on the biggest stage in college basketball. Iowa's reward for Clark's cosmic brilliance? A semifinal matchup against #1, undefeated, almighty South Carolina, currently a 12-point favorite over the Hawkeyes.
"America gets to see two fabulous, spectacular basketball players in the same 40 minutes," said Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder. "It doesn't get a lot better than that."
The Final Four is, of course, the home of the semifinals and finals of the college basketball season. It's also a staging ground for numerous regular-season awards, which includes a pair of Player of the Year awards — the Naismith and the AP*.
*A third, the Wooden Award, will be announced April 7, after the season is over.
Clark has won both awards this season, accepting the Naismith on Wednesday and the AP on Thursday. Clark's honors are especially notable as she was passed over them for South Carolina center Aliyah Boston last season, and Boston and the Gamecocks loom in Friday's showdown.
"There's no one more deserving of that award," said Gabbie Marshall. "The work she puts in day in and day out, it's unreal. I think the passion and competitiveness and joy she plays with is what makes people really want to watch her."
Nonetheless, neither team is letting the race for individual awards take their focus off the task at hand in Dallas.
"The juice is in the winning the National Championship," said South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley. "Our players don't really care about anything besides that."
"I'm just trying to convince my team: 40 minutes of basketball and a lifetime of memories, and that's all we have to focus on," said Bluder.
Clark's magnetic presence is impossible to ignore. On the court, at her highest moments she is less a player and more a conductor — throwing passes through windows that aren't yet open, goading her opponents into mistakes before they realize they're making them, guiding the roar of the crowds with a gesture to her ear. And, of course, buckets on buckets on buckets.
That magnetism extends long past the end lines of the court or the echo of the final buzzer. During Thursday's open practice, just like any number of Iowa home games, children packed the American Airlines Center sidelines looking for Clark's autograph on whatever Hawkeye gear they had.
Not only is Clark making those children's days, she's helping ignite the type of dreams that may one day come true on stages like this.
"This is everything you kind of dream of since you were a little kid," Clark said. "My mom texted me last night, and she's like, 'I feel like I was kind of stuck in your dream that you wanted to do when you were seven years old.' So it's pretty special."
"I was at the [2018 Final Four] games where Arike [Ogunbowale] hit the two buzzer beaters, and Kobe was in the gym and everything, and I was with my AAU team," said Marshall. "I was thinking about, wow, I want to be them one day. Now I'm here. It's so special."
Of course, the constant hype, demands and attention from this Final Four trip aren't normal for any college athlete. At a minimum, being the focal point on a stage like this takes a type. It must.
And yet, if being the center of the women's basketball galaxy is wearing on Clark, one would be hard-pressed to see any indication.
"This is the most fun time I've had playing basketball this year, and that's why the product has been so good for myself and this team, because I'm just going out there and having fun and enjoying what I do," said Clark.
"It's not to win an award. It's not for our team to hoist trophies. I think that has all come because we've played with the same love of the game we've had since we were young girls," she continued. "I'm going to enjoy every single second of it. I've tried to enjoy every single second of it. I think it's hard for it to set in right now because I'm so focused on continuing to play basketball and continuing to win basketball games."
And underdog or not, that "continuing to win" is not an idle choice of words.
"We're going to give it everything we have, and we've enjoyed every second in Dallas," Clark said, "and we want to be playing two more basketball games."