On Thursday night, before the Iowa Hawkeyes’ game against the Michigan Wolverines, Caitlin Clark scored 3,527 points, surpassing Kelsey Plum’s previous record.
For Iowa, Clark broke the record for most points scored in a game with eight, all coming from long range (3 points). She set a new single-game record for women’s basketball at Iowa with 49 points, and she now has 3,569 points for her career.
The historic shot occurred slightly more than two minutes into the match. Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder gave her squad and the spectators a moment to rejoice after Michigan’s subsequent possession failed to yield a score.
Clark expressed her gratitude during a halftime interview, as reported by 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,” added the athlete.
In a prerecorded video statement, Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti offered congratulations on behalf of the whole conference to the player for being the all-time highest scorer in NCAA women’s collegiate basketball. Your impact on women’s basketball is immense.
Congrats, Caitlin!
It’s not everyday someone breaks the all-time scoring record, so you know we had to go B1G. pic.twitter.com/L8s4KQ5PTD
— Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) February 16, 2024
Your example is truly remarkable. You, your loved ones, your trainers, and your teammates deserve our heartfelt congratulations once again for this incredible feat. We eagerly anticipate even greater achievements in the future.
Tom Brady, a seven-time Super Bowl winner and former Michigan Wolverine, conveyed his admiration to Clark, saying, “We love witnessing greatness here,” as part of the video’s collection of celebrity congrats. Stay focused, get the job done, and I’ll be here to watch.
The current play-by-play announcer for the Milwaukee Bucks, Lisa Byington, expressed her “honor” at having called Clark’s games in 2020–21, her freshman year.
Peyton Manning, quarterback for the two Super Bowl-winning teams, made light of the fact that he “hated settling for three points” as a football player, but that it was “not an easy task” for Clark to convert him to a three-point shooting lover.
Cohost Gayle King of “CBS Mornings” recorded her congrats message during a break from covering the Super Bowl last weekend, and it was included in the video as well.
As of Thursday’s game, Clark has the best scoring average in NCAA Division 1 women’s basketball at 32.1 points per game and the best assist average at 8.3 per game, according to ESPN. Additionally, with 5.2 three-pointers per game, she is the best in the league.
She broke the record for most career assists with 1,000 this season, becoming just the sixth woman in NCAA Division I history to do so. CBS Sports reports that she is also the only player to ever score over 3,000 points while having 1,000 assists.
Clark is also in a good position to surpass Pete Maravich’s (3,667 points) Division I scoring record from 1967–1970. Maravich played for LSU. With only 99 points separating her from the record, Clark has a legitimate shot of taking over first place in one of the four games left in the regular season.
She will have at least two more opportunities to break the record if she does not, as the fourth-ranked Hawkeyes will participate in the Big Ten tournament and will almost certainly qualify for the NCAA tournament.
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