Iowa’s team brought its ‘A’ game to Caitlin Clark’s backyard Saturday

DES MOINES — It’s called Gucci Row at some NBA venues, but this being Iowa, we’ll just call it courtside.

Caitlin Clark swished the last of her career-high nine 3-pointers Saturday night at Wells Fargo Arena, then slapped hands with a string of front row patrons on her way back down the court.

Many, Clark later said, were big donors to the Iowa program. But they still supported their team the commoners’ way with yelling and clapping rather than rattling their jewelry.

Fourteen seconds later, the entire crowd of 14,786 put its hands together to give Clark a standing ovation in her home metropolitan area as she was lifted from the game with 5:27 remaining.

Iowa’s 104-75 win over Cleveland State was a celebration of Clark and women’s basketball. It was a chance for the locals to see, cheer, and in some cases after the game, touch the reigning National Player of the Year from West Des Moines and her skilled team.

Oh, how the Clarkies — which is what we will call all the middle school-and-younger Clark fans of both genders who did a lot of giddy screaming here — loved it.

But this game was far more than Clark’s 9,999th great shooting spree. This was Hawkeye women’s basketball when it’s really clicking, a whirling dervish that gets the scoreboard odometer spinning.

Clark’s teammates did so many good things, ran so much precision transition, rebounded so hard, moved the ball around so quickly and so well. Hannah Stuelke, a sophomore power player from Cedar Rapids who has to be good for this team to again scale great heights, had 17 points and 13 rebounds in just 17 minutes.

The way Iowa scored 18 points in the first 4:36 of the second half was a reminder of how good the team can be when it’s in sync. Five different Hawkeyes scored during that blur.

Basketball lifer Jess Settles got to see the Hawkeyes in person for the first time. He seemed as wowed as any 11-year-old wearing No. 22.

“It was electric,” Iowa Coach Lisa Bluder said, “and I think a lot of these people haven't been able to see us play live. And so it was an opportunity for them to do so. And you know, I thought we did a nice job put on a good show.”

Iowa hadn’t exactly lumbered to a 10-1 record before this game. But this felt like a blastoff into Big Ten play, which will go from Dec. 30 straight through the conference tournament in March.

With all the attention Clark gets and all the public’s hopes for an encore to last season’s run to the national-championship game, the Hawkeyes can’t help but feel like they’re sometimes in a bubble. When you’re Clark, everyone expects you to sizzle for 40 minutes game after game.

The trouble is, a lot of the opponents are really good. Plus, the Hawkeyes are the hunted. Keeping this fun amid all that can be as challenging as anything.

Clark seemed a little more somber than normal in the first half, but got looser and looser the longer the game went. Repeatedly burying bombs tends to lighten a baller’s spirit, and Ms. Everything went on a fourth-quarter heater by sticking three 3-pointers in under three minutes to complete her 38-point homecoming.

She almost ran out of physical gestures to make after drilling all those shots. Almost. A grin was a big part of her second-half game. It showed up early in the second half when she was called for a charge she didn’t agree with, something that may have snapped her into a zone against Cleveland State’s zone defense.

By the time she was done, Wells Fargo joined the long list of gyms in which she had charred the nets. This wasn’t Clark’s typical home game, though. This was her home game.

It may seem stunning now, but she was just 1-3 here in four state tournament games with West Des Moines Dowling High, and said she never had a good shooting game here.

Even Michael Jordan, whose famous shrug after a 1992 NBA Finals 3-pointer has been lifted by Clark, needed to have good teammates to go places.

With her mates locked in Saturday, Clark smiled, shrugged and slapped a lot of hands, and 14,786 people headed home with their expectations met.

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