Iowa Hawkeyes guard Caitlin Clark has been Stephen Curry in a ponytail.
Clark is having a historic season and has led the Hawkeyes (31-6) to their first NCAA Women’s Championship Game appearance, where they will face the LSU Tigers (33-2) on Sunday.
The Naismith National Player of the Year, Clark has averaged 27.7 points per game this season and shoots 38% from the 3-point range.
“Those are shots that I work on all the time when I’m in the gym,” Clark told reporters. “That’s just the biggest thing. It’s not like I just get into games and just start chucking them up. When I’m in the gym working, those are shots that I’m taking.”
Clark has limitless range, ESPN measured her average shot distance from beyond the arc as 25-feet-11-inches, and the NBA 3-point line is 22 feet.
Clark’s roll through the NCAA Tournament has the basketball world — and beyond — buzzing. Everyone from Curry to LeBron James to Magic Johnson to Billie Jean King to actor John Cena has weighed in.
“She’s fearless,” Curry told ESPN. “We know everything kind of centers around her, but she does a great job of scoring at a high level but also being a playmaker and distributor. No shot is a bad shot when you can shoot it as well as she can.”
Clark has scored 161 points through five NCAA tournament games, including back-to-back 41 point games. She also recorded the first 40-point triple-double ever, man or woman, in the Elite Eight when she put up 41 points, 12 assists, and 10 rebounds against Louisville.
Clark followed that up with 41 points, eight assists, and six rebounds against undefeated South Carolina in the Final Four.
Since 2000, there have been six instances of a player having 150 points and 50 assists in a five-game span. Clark did it all six times.
“She’s just different,” assistant coach Jan Jensen told reporters about Clark. “The Jordans are different. The Taurasis are different. The way she approaches it, she has a confidence about it.”
