Caitlin Clark is the all-time main scorer in NCAA Division I basketball, ending her profession with 3,951 factors throughout 4 seasons.
Now, when she seems to be again, she questions why she wasn’t guarded higher.
In a TIME interview with Sean Gregory, Clark famous simply how a lot larger the basketball IQ is within the WNBA than within the ladies’s recreation.
“Skilled gamers {and professional} coaches — that is no disrespect to school ladies’s basketball — are lots smarter,” Clark mentioned. “I really like ladies’s school basketball. However when you return and watch the way in which folks guarded me in school, it’s virtually, like, regarding. They didn’t double me, they didn’t lure me, they weren’t bodily.”
Clark acknowledged that lots of the gamers she confronted weren’t persevering with their careers previous school, and that basketball IQ performed a task.
“A variety of these ladies won’t ever go on to play one other basketball recreation of their life,” Clark mentioned. “They don’t have the IQ of understanding how the sport works. So I fully perceive it. And it’s no disrespect in any respect. They don’t have the IQ. You need to simplify it for women at that age.”
In her senior season, Clark averaged 32.1 factors, 8.5 assists, and seven.3 rebounds, recording six triple-doubles. Her 2024 match run was punctuated by a 41-point, 12-assist outing in an Elite Eight win over LSU. In that recreation, she was primarily guarded by Hailey Van Lith, a 5’ 7 guard who clearly struggled to maintain up together with her.
On the time, many questioned why LSU didn’t double-team her or put a extra bodily defender on her. The tip end result was a 94-87 Iowa victory.
Now, we all know that Clark additionally usually questioned about opposing groups’ and coaches’ lackluster schemes as effectively.
Clark struggled within the early days of her WNBA profession, however rapidly discovered her footing, occurring to common 19.2 factors, 8.4 assists, and 5.7 rebounds per recreation. From the bounce, she confronted a degree of physicality and defensive depth she not often confronted in school.
In her TIME interview with Gregory, an NCAA ladies’s basketball recreation between USC and Ole Miss was becoming enjoying within the background.
“I really feel like if I used to be on the market, I might actually have 50 [points],” Clark mentioned. “The faculty recreation is a lot simpler than skilled.”