* Above video reveals fun truths about the Cavs *.
CLEVELAND (AP)-- Caitlin Clark does not wish to think about. Or doesn't want to discuss it. That will come later. Most likely much later on.
Yes, the Iowa star sees the jam-packed stands. Doesn't need to be advised that her name has been trending pretty much everywhere over four months that have transformed her life and, in some ways, her sport.
The truth is the leading all-time scorer in NCAA Division I history pictured some of this. A year ago after an agonizing loss to LSU in the nationwide title video game, Clark's lone focus was discovering a way back.
One paradigm-shifting season later, that moment is here. Clark will stroll onto the flooring at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse on Sunday afternoon with a chance to check off one last box on her otherwise glittering resume when the Hawkeyes deal with unbeaten South Carolina in the last game of her singular college profession.
It's a lot to think of. Clark is determined that regardless of the result, she doesn't want the scoreboard to define her. Yes, she's focused on winning, however the 22-year-old says what has occurred over the last 4 seasons goes far beyond anything she's accomplished on the court.
" I don't desire my tradition to be, oh, 'Caitlin won X quantity of video games or Caitlin scored X amount of points,'" Clark said. "I hope it's what I was able to do for the video game of women's basketball. I hope it is the young boys and young girls that are motivated to play this sport or dream to do whatever they wish to carry out in their lives." Clark's impact.
The evidence has actually been all over this weekend.
The arena was almost full when Clark's now iconic No. 22 made its way onto the floor for Iowa's open practice on Saturday. Jogging out to meet her colleagues in a black jersey, socks and shorts, she casually sank a 3-pointer from the wing the first time she touched the ball, a splash through the internet that was consulted with an audible volume spike.
It was that way over the course of 50 mostly casual minutes. The video cameras in the arena never ever wandered too far. The crowd never ever actually went silent. When Clark is involved, it never really does.
It's been that way for more than a year. She has browsed everything with an unusual polish, welcoming the spotlight if just since it gives her the power to point it in whatever direction she chooses.
Clark doesn't view herself as an among one however a part of a growing community within women's sports. Sure, a record 14.2 million tuned in to watch Iowa's win over UConn on Friday night. She doesn't see it as a one-off.
Powerball drawn after 3 hour delay: There's a winner.
" I believe you see it throughout the board, whether it's softball, whether it's gymnastics, volley ball," Clark stated. "People wish to view. It's just when they're offered the opportunity, the research study and the realities reveal that individuals like it.".
And they love Clark in particular, a full-circle minute for Clark she never saw coming. As a kid she keeps in mind being part of the "Jimmer-Mania" that surrounded former BYU sharpshooter Jimmer Fredette.
Now she's the one with kids in the stands using T-shirts in her similarity. She's the one who has actually developed a fiefdom of sorts, selling out basketball video games anywhere she laces up her black-and-yellow Nikes. It's all a bit strange, if only due to the fact that this was never her objective.
Growing up she imagined helping Iowa chase down the women's basketball powers that be. Now she and the Hawkeyes have actually elbowed their way amongst the sport's elite. That was constantly the goal, not all that has actually surprisingly come with it: the commercials, the name-drops from hoops royalty like LeBron James and Steph Curry and the way she's assisted make females's basketball available to an audience that long considered it an afterthought if it considered it at all.
It can be dizzying. She has actually attempted, nevertheless, to keep it in perspective, worrying whenever she can that this thing-- whatever it is-- is barely almost her. It's about those who came before and those who will follow.
It's a group that is rapidly expanding.
As Clark and the Hawkeyes went through a walk-through that doubled as a celebration for how far they've come, a girl held a sign that stated "I used to play soccer, now I hoop." She's hardly alone.
" I genuinely believe whenever that Caitlin breaks a record or comes off a game, there are thousands of young boys and women out shooting and wanting to be 22," Iowa coach Lisa Bluder stated. "Thousands." What's next.
The original is all set to deliver the phase-- a minimum of at this level-- to others. It's a moment Clark knows is coming, despite the fact that she's made it an indicate not get ahead of herself. Getting too captured up in the last-ness of whatever would take too much energy from the job at hand.
" Once the buzzer strikes absolutely no, whether we win or whether we lose, I'll absolutely be struck with a wave of feeling, specifically over the course of the next week, as things kind of modification in my life a fair bit," she stated.
The WNBA draft, where Clark is anticipated to be taken initially total by the Indiana Fever, waits for on April 15, little more than a week away. Perhaps some time with Team USA before the Paris Olympics.
It's been a whirlwind. It will be a whirlwind. There will be time to reflect down the roadway. In the meantime, there is just one more run with her colleagues, one more opportunity to shoot deep threes in front of a packed arena with millions more seeing in your home.
Some view to root for her. Some will see to root against her.
But they'll all enjoy.
And maybe that matters more to Clark than any net-cutting event ever could.
" The method people are not only showing up, however cheering about the game and invested in the game, they understand the video game," she said. "They know what's going on.
That's the Caitlin Clark thing.
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