It’s no secret that Caitlin Clark will eventually be the No. 1 overall pick in the WNBA Draft by the Indiana Fever and change women’s professional basketball as we know it. Until then, she’s on a quest to win a national championship at Iowa, lest anyone doubt her greatness in the absence of such an achievement.
As the Hawkeyes’ march toward March Madness continues, Clark is still knocking off god-tier individual achievements, including her newly minted status as the NCAA’s all-time leading scorer across women’s and men’s college hoops. And of course Gus Johnson was on the call.
Wherever there’s entertaining sports to be found, the mysterious forces of the universe (or savvy TV producers) seem to have Johnson on the scene to freak out about it more often than not. I’ll drop my favorite Johnson game at the end of this, along with more Caitlin Clark highlights. To have both these powerhouses of industry sharing the same moment is a rare inflection point that deserves its proper due.
But to dig more into the subject at hand: Nike Basketball celebrated Clark’s latest piece of history-making with a new commercial that applauds her for everything she’s done as a collegian to date.
What more can be said? The man in charge of delivering an exhaustive rundown of Clark’s athletic triumphs does well not to run out of breath more often throughout the ad. One comfortable pause is all it took before he reached Sunday’s milestone of eclipsing “Pistol” Pete Maravich as the college basketball’s most prolific scorer.
How about this little piece of backstory that only grows Clark’s modern mythology?
The WNBA seems to be gaining popularity in recent years, but Clark’s arrival is going to send the league into a different stratosphere. She’s quite literally the women’s equivalent to Stephen Curry, with limitless shooting range, the ability to make plays off the dribble, and the undeniable swagger and competitive fire to match.
Iowa wound up beating Ohio State 93-83 in a massive Big Ten showdown, as Clark led the Hawkeyes with 36 points to go with six rebounds, nine assists and three steals. Clark really can do it all, and she plays damn near every minute of every game, which makes her prowess all the more mind-boggling.
Caitlin Clark more than lives up to the hype. Let’s hope she can be celebrated as a probable modern GOAT, as opposed to folks trying to tear her down and diminish her accomplishments in the women’s game.
Not to make this all about the men, but by mentioning Gus Johnson at the top, I couldn’t help but pass along such a formative sports memory I have of him calling the bonkers Xavier-Kansas State Sweet 16 clash from a year I hesitate to say, as it will date me badly. Below that, there is much more current footage of one of Clark’s recent masterpieces.
A 49-point effort in Iowa’s win over Michigan from mid-February:
