Caitlin Clark’s relentless climb into the record books

Caitlin Clark’s rise to become the face of women’s basketball has been driven by her emotional accessibility and intensity: She is a charming pied piper who attracts throngs of fans wherever she plays, a joyful shooter who bounds around the court celebrating countless big shots and a fiery competitor who relishes trash talk and the occasional confrontation with the officials.

By contrast, the University of Iowa star’s relentless climb up the women’s basketball scoring chart has been a robotic statistical exercise. Simply put, Clark has become the most prolific and reliable scoring machine in the sport’s history, and she will soon break former University of Washington star Kelsey Plum’s Division I record of 3,527 career points.

After scoring 27 points against Penn State on Thursday, Clark has 3,489 career points and needs 39 more to surpass Plum with Iowa set to face Nebraska on Sunday and Michigan on Thursday.

Svrluga: Caitlin Clark is worth the price of admission

Caitlin Clark’s relentless climb into the record books

During her four years in Iowa City, Clark has never missed a game because of injury and has rarely endured an off night. Only once in her 124-game career has she been held under 10 points — in January 2021, midway through her freshman season — and her double-digit scoring streak reached 114 games entering Sunday’s action. This year, she has yet to be held under 20 points and is averaging a career-high 32.2 points per game, the third-highest mark in history. Barring an unthinkable turn of events, Clark will finish this season leading the country in scoring average for the third time — something no women’s player has ever done before.

Plum, a two-time WNBA all-star guard for the Las Vegas Aces, has held the women’s record since 2017.

“I’m actually very grateful to pass that baton,” Plum said. “I’m very happy for her. [Chasing the record] felt like a lot of pressure, and my identity was kind of caught up in that record. I hope everyone in the media takes time to understand that she is not just a basketball player but a young woman that has feelings and emotions. She carries it with grace, but there’s a lot to handle there. If anything, make sure that we show her love outside of her performance. ”

Fast and steady

Clark launched her bid to unseat Plum on Nov. 25, 2020, against Northern Iowa. In the first minute of her collegiate debut, the 18-year-old freshman from West Des Moines made two free throws. Seconds later, she scored her first bucket — a transition layup going right that she set up with a well-timed hesitation dribble and kissed off the glass.

“She is what we expected,” Iowa Coach Lisa Bluder said then. “She is so good with the ball in her hands and she can score in so many different areas.”

Though that first game was played in a nearly empty Carver-Hawkeye Arena because of the coronavirus pandemic, anyone who watched got a clear first look at a superstar in the making. As it happened, Clark finished with 27 points in her debut — slightly topping her freshman-year average of 26.6 points per game and nearly matching her career average of 28.1 points per game. The 6-foot guard hit the ground running and never looked back, scoring at least 30 points in three of her next four games en route to her first scoring title.

How she’s done it

Bluder fashioned her offense in her star’s mold, encouraging the Hawkeyes to play an up-tempo style and giving Clark the green light as both a scorer and playmaker. The conditions were just right for Clark to compile huge numbers, because she logged big minutes and huge usage rates while leading a Hawkeyes offense that has been one of the NCAA’s fastest-paced and highest-scoring throughout her tenure.

Clark’s durability and consistency have been crucial to her scoring success, but her elite outside shooting has been her not-so-secret weapon. As she earned comparisons to Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry for her logo range and quick trigger, Clark led the NCAA in three-pointers as a freshman and junior and ranks first through this point of her senior season. Entering Sunday, she has made 473 career three-pointers and is shooting 38.2 percent from long distance.

Plum was an excellent outside shooter herself, graduating with 343 career three-pointers and an identical 38.2 percent average from deep. During her four years at Washington, Plum scored 29 percent of her points on three-pointers. By contrast, Clark has scored a whopping 40 percent of her points from beyond the arc.

Many of Clark’s most indelible moments are three-pointers: She famously launched from the logo against Michigan in February 2022, she beat Indiana at the buzzer in February 2023, and she drilled another game-winner against Michigan State in January. In the 2023 NCAA tournament, she made eight three-pointers to beat Louisville and lift Iowa to its second Final Four appearance in school history.

Often lost in the fawning over Clark’s three-point shooting is her crafty ability to get to the free throw line. Indeed, Clark has attempted more than 800 free throw attempts in her career and shoots 85.8 percent from the stripe. Those extra points might not make the highlight reels, but they have kept Iowa’s offense going when opposing defenses shadow her on the arc with extra attention and have helped compensate for the occasional subpar shooting night.

More than just points

Clark has scored 40 or more points 11 times, but her career high of 46 points, which came on the road against Michigan during her sophomore season, falls well short of Plum’s career-best 57 points against Utah on Feb. 25, 2017. When JuJu Watkins poured in 51 points to beat Stanford on Feb. 2, the Southern Cal freshman topped Clark’s career high in just her 18th game. In a stunning twist, Hawkeyes forward Hannah Stuelke scored 47 points against Penn State on Thursday to surpass Clark’s most prolific performance.

However, Clark’s responsibilities as Iowa’s chief distributor have produced more balanced offensive outputs, including 15 career triple-doubles and 43 double-doubles with assists. Plum never registered a triple-double and had just one double-double with assists at Washington. Indeed, Clark stands apart from the other top five scorers in women’s basketball history when it comes to creating offense for her teammates. Clark ranks second in career triple-doubles, trailing only former Oregon star Sabrina Ionescu, who posted 26.

Perhaps the best way to measure Clark’s prowess as a scorer and creator is to compare Iowa’s team attack with its peers. The Hawkeyes have ranked in the top five by offensive efficiency in each of her four seasons; no other team has ranked in the top five more than twice during that time period. After guiding the country’s second-ranked offense last season, Clark swept the major player of the year honors.

Still not done

Looking ahead, Clark should challenge Pete Maravich for the NCAA’s all-time scoring record for men or women. Maravich, the LSU star turned Hall of Famer, tallied 3,667 points during three seasons with the Tigers from 1967-68 to 1969-70. Iowa has six regular season games remaining before competing in the Big Ten and NCAA tournaments.

Clark can put significant distance between herself and the top women scorers given that she averages significantly more points per game than the rest of the top five. If, hypothetically, Clark maintains her current scoring average of 32.2 points per game and plays six regular season games and at least five combined games in the conference tournament and NCAA tournament, she would finish this season with 3,843 points. That would give her a lead of 316 points over Plum — a larger gap than exists between Plum and Griner, who ranks fifth all-time in scoring.

It’s worth noting Clark could put hundreds of more points between herself and the rest of the field if she chose to return to Iowa for a fifth season because she has an extra year of eligibility because of the NCAA’s covid-19 waiver. For that reason, if she declares for this year’s WNBA draft, it should be viewed as an act of mercy toward her collegiate opponents and the NCAA’s record books.

Data from sports-reference.