Caitlin Clark Shatters Yet Another Record

Unbelievably enough, University of Iowa’s Caitlin Clark still isn’t done making history and shattering pretty much every record you could name. On Sunday night, in front of four-time WNBA champion Maya Moore, Travis Scott, and Jake from State Farm, Clark broke the NCAA’s all-time scoring record for men’s and women’s basketball, passing Pete “Pistol Pete” Maravich’s career record of 3,667 points that’s stood since 1970. Clark passed the record by one point with a free-throw, and has since told reporters that she didn’t even realize what she’d done until “they announced it and everybody screamed.”

“Honestly, if you would’ve told me that when my college career started, I would’ve laughed in your face, like ‘no you’re insane,’” Clark said. 

In addition to breaking the NCAA record, Clark dropped 35 points in her final game of the regular season, allowing No. 6 Iowa to defeat No. 2 Ohio State by 10 points, 93-83. “More than anything, it’s just good momentum for our team going into the Big Ten Tournament,” Clark said of the historic evening. “You never want to go into the Big Ten Tournament on a loss. So I think building off this is really important.”

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Even if Clark didn’t know she was set to make history that night, going into the game 17 points shy of Maravich’s record, all while averaging 32.2 points per game this season, it seems like plenty of other people did: NPR reports that according to the ticketing platform Logitix, the average ticket price for the game stood at $598 for sale since February 1.

Just four games earlier, on February 15, Clark broke a different record, passing Lynette Woodard’s 3,649-point women’s college record, which Woodard set before the NCAA recognized women’s basketball. And a few weeks earlier, Clark hit an insane, half-court deep three to surpass Kelsey Plum’s existing record of 3,527 points. Clark went on to drop 49 points that game against the Michigan Wolverines, finishing the night on eight-for-10 shooting with 23 points in the first quarter alone, all on top of 13 assists.

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Since Sunday, Clark has received congratulations from the likes of LeBron James—who just became the first NBA player in history to reach 40,000 career points this weekend—to President Biden. “CONGRATS @CaitlinClark22 on becoming the All-Time leading scorer!!” James tweeted on Sunday night, followed by a string of bucket emojis while Biden chimed in that Clark has “made [her] school proud,” which I’d imagine is quite the understatement.

As Clark’s Hawkeyes enter the Big Ten Tournament this month, we also have Clark’s entrance into the WNBA’s draft after this season to look forward to, and all the shattered records that’ll inevitably come with her WNBA career.