Caitlin Clark’s record-breaking shot was pure her: Outrageously brilliant

IOWA CITY — It had to be audacious.

The shot Caitlin Clark made to become the NCAA women’s basketball all-time scoring leader had to be the kind 99.999 percent of all basketball players wouldn’t take unless they wanted to get yanked from a game. Except if it was taken out of desperation, to beat a shot clock or game clock. A shot that would be cuckoo clock otherwise.

It had to be outrageous.

It had to be something that would raise eyebrows even if it came from master NBA marksmen Stephen Curry and Damian Lillard. It had to be something taboo to commoners, barely makeable even without an opponent in your grill.

It had to go straight through the net.

Iowa’s Gabbie Marshall tracked down a long rebound and flipped the ball to on-the-move Clark in the backcourt. Clark took two dribbles. Then she fired, from the Mediacom logo parallel to the scorer’s table. It had to be the most bang that cable company ever got for its advertising buck.

Michigan’s Laila Phelia contested the shot, knowing full well whom she was defending. Phelia guarded Clark well. It mattered not. Clark went straight up and let the ball sail before anyone from either team was near the basket.

Swish.

Naturally, she knew the shot was good the instant she let it fly.

With that, Iowa had an 8-2 lead with 7:48 left in the first quarter on eight Clark points, the exact number she needed coming in to become the NCAA women’s basketball scoring leader.

Eight points in two minutes and 12 seconds? Seems about right.

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Moorings and molars may have been loosened in Carver-Hawkeye Arena from the noise the crowd of 14,998 made from the record-breaking bomb. Basketball fans around the nation and planet watching it on live streaming surely were guilty of live screaming.

It couldn’t have been a layup. It couldn’t have been a free throw. It had to be that shot, from 33 feet. Because ordinary players don’t break all-time scoring records, and extraordinary players know how to leave indelible memories in the biggest moments.

The best players rise to occasions. Thursday, Clark was 30,000 feet above Carver.

A footnote: The fourth-ranked Hawkeyes defeated the Wolverines, 106-89.

Not a footnote by any stretch: Clark scored 49 points, the most by a Hawkeye woman in any game, any year, and the most scored in 41-year-old Carver by any woman, man or extraterrestrial. She also had 13 assists to up her national lead in that statistic.

Hey, if you’re going to have a night, have a night.

But that shot, the second of the nine 3-pointers she made Thursday, the one that sent her fans over the moon …

“It was perfect,” said Iowa Coach Lisa Bluder. “It was absolutely perfect for her to go over and reach this record from the logo.”

Bluder got her first sight of Clark’s game when the player was a seventh-grader. Bluder knew. Not that she envisioned 3,569 points from Clark with several games still to play, but she knew. Clark knew, too.

“I think my 6-year-old self would be proud of where I am,” Clark said after the game and the postgame ceremony on the court. “Maybe not be surprised. Maybe be surprised with the magnitude that I’m on right now.

“But I was the same fiery, competitive person that I am today. Not much has really changed in that regard. But I think I would be proud of the way I’ve worked for this, more than anything. Nothing was ever given.

“Just work hard every day and try to make your dreams come true.”

Clark’s first college game was a 2020 Hawkeyes win over Northern Iowa in Carver before a crowd of almost no one during a pandemic. She scored 27 points.

“I set my goals pretty high,” she said after that game.

“It’s crazy how fast time flies,” Clark said Thursday. “It seems like yesterday I was playing that game with nobody in the stands and having to wear a mask on the bench and only our parents here.”

Three years and three months later, if you haven’t seen Caitlin Clark yet you haven’t seen basketball.

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com