Caitlin Clark, being the competitor she is, doesn’t care about a moment of celebration when she breaks the NCAA women’s basketball career scoring record Thursday night.
Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder originally wanted to honor Clark with a timeout, but has since changed plans upon hearing her point guard’s thoughts on the stakes of the upcoming night matchup against Michigan.
“I hope they don’t stop the game,” Clark told reporters Wednesday. “We can’t be wasting timeouts on that, come on now.”
For the 15,000-plus at Carver-Hawkeye Arena and the millions more watching on TV (8 p.m. ET, Peacock), it will be a historical moment in college sports when the Iowa star scores likely well beyond the eight points she needs to top two-time WNBA champion Kelsey Plum’s NCAA record of 3,527 points, which she set in 2017 at Washington.
“Eight points is what we’re looking at for this record, and obviously she’s going to just blast it out of the water,” Bluder said. “It’s going to be fun to see how many points she adds on to that.”
“I’m not anxious about it really at all,” said Clark, who leads the NCAA with an eye-popping 32.1 points per game. “I’m just really excited. It’s going to be a special night.”
While Clark and Bluder knew the scoring record was creeping up, it wasn’t something either of them discussed between themselves or with the rest of the team until Wednesday’s practice.
“I want to talk to them about the significance of it and that we want to celebrate this,” Bluder said. “This is really exciting for our university, our basketball program, that one of our players is going to do this.”
Outside of Clark’s eventual record-breaking moment, Thursday remains a big night for Iowa (22-3) as only five regular-season matchups remain, with pivotal seeding for the NCAA tournament to come.
On Sunday, Iowa fell to Nebraska in a late-game 82-79 collapse, ending its four-game winning streak.
The Hawkeyes aim to bounce back against Michigan (16-9) before facing their most formidable Big Ten title opponents — Ohio State (22-3) and Indiana (21-3) — before the conference tournament on March 6.
Against the Cornhuskers, it seemed inevitable that Clark would score 39 points to earn the record leading into the Super Bowl. Yet, Nebraska held her scoreless in the fourth quarter, which also left Clark’s teammates in shock, according to Blunder.
“That’s, I think, been the case with our team all year long is that we can’t have the Michael Jordan effect where everybody’s standing around watching her,” Bluder said.
Once past Plum, there are still records Clark can try to chase down for the remainder of her senior year.
Kansas alum Lynette Woodard, who leads all-time Division I women with 3,649 points, would be next on the list, followed by Pete Maravich’s all-time Division I men’s record of 3,667 points.
Woodard’s record is not recognized by the NCAA since it came in the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIWA), according to The Wall Street Journal.
Francis Marion alum Pearl Moore remains at the top with the overall collegiate record with a staggering 4,061 points, but her mark is not upheld by the NCAA since she also participated in the AIWA and competed against smaller schools in Division II, per the Associated Press.
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