Caitlin Clark has one more shot at the NCAA title before joining the WMBA—and the pressure is mounting.
The 22-year-old basketball star led the Iowa Hawkeyes to victory against UConn on April 5, sending the college team to the women’s NCAA championship game against the undefeated South Carolina Gamecocks.
Just last week, Iowa’s win against Louisiana State University became the most-watched game in women’s college basketball history, with 12.3 million viewers tuning in to see the epic rematch between Clark and fellow generational talent Angel Reese. While Clark has yet to win a national title, the superstar recently became the the all-time NCAA Division I scoring leader, male or female. Meanwhile, Reese is a record-breaker herself and previously defeated Clark at the championships in 2023. It’s no wonder their latest face-off marked ESPN’s “most-watched college basketball game EVER,” regardless of gender.
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Now, Clark has one more chance to take home a national title in women’s college basketball before heading to the WMBA. However, Iowa’s latest win against UConn (71-69) was not the triumphant victory many basketball fans wanted to see.
While the final few minutes were no-doubt thrilling to watch—with some incredibly entertaining plays by Caitlin Clark—many believe a controversial foul called on UConn’s Aaliyah Edwards with just 3.9 seconds remaining led to the New England team’s defeat. Basically, viewers were disappointed to see such an tight game appear to be determined by a questionable call—especially legendary pro player LeBron James. “NAAAAAHHHHHH!!! I ain’t rolling with that call,” James wrote on X.com.
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“I hate the end of that game,” Gabrielle Union wrote. “That’s a damn shame. Iowa came to play and so did UConn. That’s absolutely NOT how you determine a game like this.”
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Even Angel Reese weighed in, asking, “wait was that screen not set clean?”
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However, others believed it was the right call, with one X.com user writing, “It just sucks cause it was 3 seconds left.”
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UConn’s own superstar player Paige Bueckers claims the foul call did not cause her team’s loss. “Everybody can make a big deal of that one single play, but not one single play wins a basketball game or loses a basketball game,” Bueckers told reporters after the game. “You can look at one play and say, ‘Oh, that killed us or that hurt us.’ But we should have done a better job.”
Still, many viewers celebrated Clark’s incredible strategy to run down the clock at the end of the game by bouncing the ball off Bueckers’ back.
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Clark even got the Kristin Juszczyk treatment!
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No matter how you feel about the game’s final moments, Iowa is heading to the championships against South Carolina, who are favored to win the whole thing. “South Carolina has been the top of the top,” Clark said after last night’s game. “They’re in a different league. We’re going to do everything we can to try to be right there with them. But, yeah, I think the biggest thing is enjoy this tonight and we’ll go over the scout early in the morning.”
But no matter what happens, Caitlin Clark’s effect on women’s basketball is something to celebrate—just ask Stephen Curry, whose own record for most 3-pointers in a single NCAA Division-I season was surpassed by Clark in March.
“I’ve been watching from afar and understanding just how much of a power she is out there on the court,” Curry recently said of Clark on CBS Mornings. “The cool part is the way that she plays, and her range, and the level of difficulty on her shots is obviously a very close comparison to the way that I play.
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“But I think it almost robs her of like the rest of her game because she’s such a good floor [general], she has her overall floor game. She’s racking up close to triple-doubles every night. Her shooting ability is her super power, but the rest of her game is as polished as that, so this is must-see TV.”
At the end of the day, women’s basketball is on the rise and you should probably study up if you don’t want to be left out of the discourse next weekend. It’s like Clark said when asked by reporters why it’s “good business” to invest in women’s basketball: “You’re just going to be late to the party if you don’t.”
The post Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes’ Defeat Against UConn Sparks Outrage and Celebration Online appeared first on Glamour.
