Caitlin Clark, #22 of the Iowa Hawkeyes, and her teammates rejoice after beating Louisiana State 94-87 within the Elite Eight spherical of the NCAA girls’s event on Monday.

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Caitlin Clark, #22 of the Iowa Hawkeyes, and her teammates rejoice after beating Louisiana State 94-87 within the Elite Eight spherical of the NCAA girls’s event on Monday.

Sarah Stier/Getty Images

Before Caitlin Clark turned faculty basketball’s all-time main scorer, earlier than she turned a family title, earlier than all of the community TV interviews and licensing offers and seven-story-tall Nike adverts — her first March Madness ended, like so many others have, by the hands of the University of Connecticut.

As a freshman, Clark was already phenomenal. With her as their star, the Iowa Hawkeyes had reached the Sweet 16. Still, they wished extra: Iowa’s first Final Four for the reason that Nineties, and — in the event that they dared to dream it — this system’s first-ever title.

But, in March of 2021, the undisputed Goliath of girls’s faculty basketball, UConn, was an excessive amount of. Clark managed 21 factors, however the Huskies overpowered Iowa 92-72 en path to their thirteenth consecutive Final Four.

Now, three years later, as Clark’s historic college career nears its finish, her Iowa Hawkeyes are actually a heavyweight prime seed, within the Final Four for the second yr in a row.

A nationwide title is nearly the one honor that Clark has but to earn, and to take action, Iowa should sq. off in opposition to the Huskies one final time in a must-watch Final Four matchup Friday that’s anticipated to interrupt viewership information for girls’s faculty basketball.

“It’s amazing to be back in the Final Four,” Clark mentioned after Iowa’s Elite Eight win over Louisiana State Monday. “We want to win two more, and I think we have the power to do that.”

“I thought I was going to go to UConn when I was growing up”

For Clark, that 2021 loss had one other, extra private layer to it: She’d as soon as dreamed of attending UConn, however the college had declined to recruit her.

Clark, who’s now 22, grew up watching faculty basketball throughout probably the most dominant stretches of all time by any crew: the UConn dynasty of the 2010s. In these years, head coach Geno Auriemma led the Huskies to four consecutive NCAA championships and a 111-game successful streak that spanned a number of complete seasons.

In explicit, Clark says that she idolized former UConn star Maya Moore, who went on to play within the WNBA for the Minnesota Lynx, only a few hours’ drive from Clark’s hometown of Des Moines.

“I wanted to be just like her. I thought I was going to go to UConn when I was growing up, but obviously that’s not what happened,” Clark said in a news conference last month.

As a excessive schooler, Clark was recruited by faculties nationwide, together with by prime packages like Notre Dame. But UConn and Auriemma by no means got here calling, she advised ESPN in a profile last month.

“Honestly,” Clark mentioned, “it was more I wanted them to recruit me to say I got recruited. I loved UConn. I think they’re the coolest place on Earth, and I wanted to say I got recruited by them.”

Ultimately, Clark dedicated to Iowa, the place she started her profession within the fall of 2020. “I know a lot of little girls dream about going to all those blue bloods, but I think playing for your home state is really something special,” Clark mentioned that season.

After UConn ended Iowa’s event run in 2021, Auriemma pulled Clark apart after the sport to pay his compliments. “He said, ‘What you’ve done for Iowa this season has really been something special, and you have a bright future’ — and to hear him say that to me really meant something,” Clark mentioned after the 2021 game. “I’m very thankful for that.”

Clark’s freshman season got here to an finish when UConn beat Iowa within the Sweet 16 by a rating of 92-72.

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Eric Gay/AP

Clark’s freshman season got here to an finish when UConn beat Iowa within the Sweet 16 by a rating of 92-72.

Eric Gay/AP

Clark has performed UConn twice earlier than and misplaced each instances

Within hours of Iowa’s loss to UConn within the 2021 event, Clark was already trying forward.

One reporter requested about UConn’s smothering protection; she answered with what classes she deliberate to remove. “Progressing throughout my career, it’s going to be the same thing,” she mentioned then. “So, just learning from it, getting better, finding ways to move without the ball, things like that.”

And even because the Hawkeyes had fallen two video games wanting the Final Four that yr, Clark expressed confidence that it will quickly be inside attain. “That’s the reason I came here, because there was a true belief that we were going to make the Final Four someday,” she mentioned. “We didn’t say we were going to do it in my first year here.”

Most prescient of all, Clark foresaw that the Hawkeyes would in the future change into a nationwide draw. “People are going to be super excited about Iowa women’s basketball,” she mentioned then.

Last season, when Clark was a junior, the 2 groups performed once more in a November common season recreation that UConn gained by seven. Clark scored 25. “Obviously [I] … didn’t shoot the ball from three the way we would have liked. But you have games like that. That’s just how basketball goes,” she mentioned afterward.

Friday’s Final Four recreation

On Friday evening, Clark and Iowa will tackle UConn, a No. 3 seed on this yr’s event, in a star-studded collision of powerhouses. The Huskies have their very own megastar in guard Paige Bueckers, a junior, who has averaged 22 factors per recreation this season.

After their nationwide championship loss in final yr’s NCAA event, a red-eyed Clark mentioned she hoped her legacy can be her influence on younger youngsters and the individuals of the state of Iowa.

“I hope I brought them a lot of joy this season. I hope this team brought them a lot of joy. I understand we came up one win short,” she mentioned, sniffling and wiping her tears with a towel. “But I think we have a lot to be proud of and a lot to celebrate.” It was too early at that second, she mentioned, to sit up for this season.

Now, Iowa has made no secret of their ambitions: successful the title that was simply barely out of attain final yr.

“That’s obviously our goal. That’s where we want to be,” Clark mentioned Monday. “But you have to take it one at a time. There’s still two more there to get.”

For Clark, the most important distinction between her first tilt at UConn and now’s her psychological recreation. “I’ve always had the basketball skills. It’s just been my mind and making my mind better,” she mentioned.

“I think the biggest thing has been my maturity and being able to move on from things when it doesn’t go my way,” she added. “I’m not worried about what the other team’s doing. I’m not worried about what call the ref is making. I’m worried about what Iowa needs.”

For UConn, Friday’s recreation is a return to the Final Four after lacking out final season. “There’s something about when you reach this particular game,” mentioned Auriemma on Monday after UConn toppled 1-seed USC to earn their spot within the Final Four. “It may be even more emotional than winning a national championship game sometimes, because you know how hard it was to get here.”

Whether Iowa or UConn wins Friday’s recreation, their greatest problem might but lay forward.

Whoever advances will tackle the winner of the event’s different Final Four matchup between a sizzling North Carolina State crew, a No. 3 seed, and the dominant South Carolina Gamecocks, the occasion’s prime total seed, who have not misplaced a single recreation this season.