Iowa Hawkeyes superstar guard Caitlin Clark enjoyed a magical run with few precedents in college basketball history. Now, she will have the rest of her life to reflect on the experience.
Following the Hawkeyes’ 87-75 loss to the South Carolina Gamecocks in Sunday’s NCAA championship game, the likely first overall pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft took to social media to post a simple, three-word message to her fans.
“I’ll miss ya,” Clark wrote.
The message appeared superimposed on a photo that featured her black #22 Iowa jersey, along with one of her sneakers. Seven yellow hearts followed the three-word message.
Clark posted the photo on her Instagram story, per Outkick.
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Caitlin Clark says goodbye to Iowa WBB ❤️
(via @CaitlinClark22) pic.twitter.com/8QP5WqK3Nz
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) April 7, 2024
On Friday, CBS Sports projected Clark as the 1st overall pick to the Indiana Fever in the 2024 WNBA Draft.
That same mock draft had Angel Reese of the LSU Tigers projected 7th overall to the Minnesota Lynx. Clark’s Hawkeyes lost to Reese’s Tigers in the 2023 national championship game before exacting a measure of revenge with a 94-87 win over LSU on April 1 — in a game that drew record viewership and sent Iowa to a second consecutive Final Four.
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Then, on Friday, the Hawkeyes eked out a 71-69 victory over the Connecticut Huskies and legendary coach Geno Auriemma, who did not recruit Clark out of high school despite her desire to play at UConn. That Huskies team boasted a pair of likely top picks in the WNBA Draft: forward Aaliyah Edwards, projected 6th overall to the Washington Mystics, and guard Nika Muhl, projected 12th overall to the Atlanta Dream.
Finally, the Hawkeyes’ run ended with Sunday’s loss to undefeated South Carolina and star center Kamilla Cardoso, projected 4th overall to the Los Angeles Sparks.
In other words, Iowa faced the country’s most talented teams while reaching the brink of a championship.
On Sunday, Clark did all she could to bring home that elusive championship. Against the best team in America, led by coach Dawn Staley, the Iowa sharpshooter got off to a sizzling start with a championship-record 18 points in the first quarter.
Clark finished with 30 points in the game and closed her career with an NCAA Division I record 3,951 points.
With the loss, however, Clark’s legendary run at Iowa came to a disappointing end.
Now, she faces a quick turnaround as she prepares for a professional career that will offer little time for reflection. The WNBA Draft will take place Apr. 15 in New York City, CBS Sports reported.
In the meantime, one struggles to find historical comparisons for Clark’s accomplishments, including her broader cultural impact.
For one thing, sports commentators seem to inject skin color into conversations where it rarely belongs. And Clark, who is white, brought unprecedented levels of interest to a sport dominated by black players.
Likewise, Clark’s teams suffered two consecutive losses in national championship games.
Thus, for historical purposes, those factors might make her legacy comparable to that of the iconic Fab Five.
In the early 1990s, a group of five black freshmen created a cultural phenomenon when they came together to lead the Michigan Wolverines men’s basketball team to the 1992 national championship game, where they lost to the defending-champion Duke Blue Devils.
Then, the following year, the Fab Five returned to the championship game, falling to the North Carolina Tar Heels.
Led by future NBA stars Chris Webber, Juwan Howard and Jalen Rose, those 1992-93 Michigan teams changed college basketball. Their baggy shorts and on-court brashness rubbed many of the sport’s blue bloods the wrong way. But the Fab Five attracted millions of young fans and became must-see TV.
In a 2011 ESPN documentary, Rose summarized the Fab Five’s legacy in a way that also could apply to Clark.
“Did we want to win two championships? Yes. But we didn’t,” Rose said in a clip of the documentary posted to YouTube.
“But tell me who won the championship three years ago. Tell me who won the championship five years ago. Tell me who was the starting lineup for the Carolina team that beat us,” he added.
In all likelihood, Rose meant no disrespect to those 1993 NCAA champion Tar Heels. He simply told the truth about the Fab Five’s legacy.
It would imply no disrespect to the 2024 NCAA champion Gamecocks to suggest that Clark might have established a comparable legacy of her own.
