Sport
Historic Performance: Caitlin Clark Shatters NCAA Scoring Record
Caitlin Clark’s Record-Breaking Moment
Caitlin Clark has surpassed Kelsey Plum’s NCAA women’s basketball career scoring record, scoring 3,527 points Thursday night at the commencement of the Iowa Hawkeyes’ game vs Michigan.
Clark scored Iowa’s first eight points of the game, including a deep three-pointer that eclipsed the record.
The record-breaking shot came a little over two minutes into the match. After Michigan’s ensuing possession, which failed, Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder called a timeout to allow Clark’s teammates and fans to celebrate the achievement.
Clark responded in a halftime interview that she was “grateful,” according to CBS Sports.
“Thankful to be surrounded by people — be in a city that supports women’s basketball so much, be surrounded by my best friends and the people that want to see me be great and push me to be great every single day,” she went on to remark.
Celebration and Recognition
“On behalf of everyone at the Big Ten Conference, we want to congratulate you on becoming the NCAA women’s college basketball all-time leading scorer,” Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti said in a taped video greeting. “Your contributions to women’s basketball are quite substantial.
You are a fantastic inspiration. So once again, congratulations to you, your family, your coaches, and your teammates on this tremendous achievement. We can’t wait to see what great things await us.”
The video also incorporates testimonies from other sports luminaries, including seven-time Super Bowl winner and former Michigan Wolverine Tom Brady, who told Clark, “We enjoy seeing brilliance here. Keep your head down and go do the task; I’ll be watching.”
Lisa Byington, who now does play-by-play for the Milwaukee Bucks, said she was “honored” to call Clark’s games during her freshman year in 2020.
Two-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback Peyton Manning said that when playing football, he “hated settling for three points,” but Clark was able to turn him into a lover of the three-pointer, which was “not an easy task.”
The video also included a shoutout from “CBS Mornings” cohost Gayle King, who shot her congrats message while on break from covering last weekend’s Super Bowl.
Season Highlights and Future Prospects
Clark entered Thursday’s game averaging 32.1 points and 8.3 assists per game this season, according to ESPN, the highest figures in NCAA Division 1 women’s basketball. She also makes the most three-pointers per game, 5.2.
According to CBS Sports, she became the sixth woman in NCAA Division I history to have 1,000 career assists this season, as well as the only athlete to have scored more than 3,000 points and 1,000 assists.
Clark also has a chance to exceed the Division I scoring record of 3,667 points set by LSU’s Pete Maravich, who played from 1967 to 1970.
While the Hawkeyes, ranked fourth entering Thursday, are practically assured of making the NCAA tournament, Clark has the potential to beat the record in the four regular-season games remaining following Thursday’s game against Michigan.