Iowa’s legacy isn’t just Caitlin Clark, but the joy it brought to basketball

CLEVELAND — Caitlin Clark walked into her final postgame Iowa news conference, found her seat in the middle of the dais and sat down. Kate Martin followed closely behind, and coach Lisa Bluder joined both of them about 20 seconds later.

There was disappointment, sure. For the second consecutive season, Iowa lost the NCAA championship, this time to unbeaten South Carolina 87-75. But the secondary emotion this year — unlike last year’s frustration against LSU — was one of resignation. These Hawkeyes played as hard and as well as possible; it just wasn’t good enough.

The Gamecocks were superior in nearly every facet, and only a perfect performance would have vaulted Iowa to victory.

Good coaches ask their teams to play to the best of their abilities, and when they do, they can be satisfied with the results. That was the case here. Yes, there were a few possessions that could have turned out differently, but that works both ways. So when Bluder, Clark and Martin started answering questions, they were more reflective than emotional. That was how they got through their final media session this season. But to properly convey the Iowa women’s basketball team’s place in collegiate athletics, reflection and emotion are synonymous.

This year’s Hawkeyes (34-5) set plenty of records, starting with total victories. Clark is the most decorated and statistically accomplished player in women’s basketball history. Media guides will list Clark’s unreal level of exploits for decades to come, but the numbers tell only a fraction of the story. Those spiral-bound books can’t document how this team made people feel. That’s where the memories begin.

It’s about the 10-year-old boys who wear black No. 22 T-shirts to school and to games because it’s cool to be like Caitlin Clark. It’s about the 14-year-old girls in Iowa and the Chicago suburbs and throughout the Midwest who saw an athletic superstar who looked like them up close. It’s about the middle-aged women who own a closet full of player T-shirts to celebrate the next generation of young women. It’s about the elderly women who sit close to the floor at Carver-Hawkeye Arena and played basketball in high school but were born before athletic scholarships were available to them.

And, of course, it’s about Clark, who helped bring sellouts to 37 of Iowa’s 39 games. It’s about Bluder, who began her coaching career at St. Ambrose in Iowa at age 23 in 1984. It’s about Martin, who will flip from pupil to mentor in short order, and everyone she coaches will be better for it. It’s about Gabbie Marshall, who will move to North Carolina after the semester to get her master’s degree in occupational therapy. It’s about Molly Davis, whose sprained knee in the regular-season finale kept her from participating in the Big Ten and NCAA Tournaments until there were only 20 seconds left Sunday.

It’s about everyone who made Iowa women’s basketball appointment viewing, even if they never stepped foot in Carver-Hawkeye Arena. This team made people smile, and there’s no way to affix a price to that.

“I don’t know if you can really describe and put it into words this legacy,” Martin said. “Honestly, I just hope we’ve brought a lot of people joy and we’ve brought a lot of people together.

“I hear all the time about how many friends people have made in the stands just watching our games. We sold out every single home game this year at Carver. And everywhere we go, we have fans lining up wanting Caitlin’s autograph, our autograph. More than anything, our legacy is what we’ve brought to the state of Iowa, I think, and all the joy and the fun.”

“I just hope we’ve brought a lot of people joy and we’ve brought a lot of people together.”

Kate Martin on the legacy of this Iowa team 💛 pic.twitter.com/i1k576UcH5

— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) April 7, 2024

With this team came viewership records on seven television networks or streaming platforms. The Hawkeyes became the first women’s basketball team in Big Ten history to sell out their season tickets — which they did in August. They set a women’s basketball attendance record in October when 55,646 people attended an exhibition at Kinnick Stadium.

In Cleveland at the Final Four, at least two-thirds of the fans wore black and gold. From sound levels reaching 118 decibels for Marshall’s first 3-pointer against Holy Cross to the persistent 100-plus decibels against West Virginia, the passion elicited for this group of young women was extraordinary.

“It’s meant everything to me,” said Marshall, who was in tears as she spoke at her locker. “I never thought I’d have people wearing my shirt with my name on it or signs in the crowd. Or people telling me I’m their favorite player. We have had eyes on us this whole time, so much attention.

“We wish, we hope that we can be role models for little boys and girls and just inspire them. I don’t think points or anything like that matters to any of us at the end of the day. It’s the people. It truly is the fans that have supported us. They’ve meant everything to us.”

Clark’s legacy is both separate and interwoven with this team. She’s the star attraction, and her NCAA-record 3,951 points provides the zenith atop a mountain of accomplishments. With 30 points in her career finale, Clark set the NCAA Tournament record with 491 points, and she did it in five fewer games than previous record-holder Chamique Holdsclaw.

With logo 3-pointers and skilled passing, Clark will remain on display in the WNBA for the next 15 years. So will her showmanship. But her generosity in signing countless autographs is what comes to the forefront. One afternoon in February, as I sat in assistant coach Jan Jensen’s office, there was a knock on the door. It was Clark asking if she could interrupt for a moment. She had a handwritten card and a signed T-shirt for a little girl whose cancer returned and gave it to Jensen to pass along. Clark did that all the time without fanfare.

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“I think people didn’t love us for our wins,” Clark said. “I think they loved us for the way we carried ourselves every single day, for the way we played for one another, the joy we played with, the passion we played with, the competitive spirit we had, the way we high-fived and celebrated our teammates’ success. That’s the reason people loved turning on Iowa women’s basketball.”

Then there’s Bluder, who somehow gets left off the great coaching conversations. She’s the winningest coach in Big Ten women’s basketball history and trails only Bob Knight and Tom Izzo among all league basketball coaches. She has 884 career victories, ranking 10th in NCAA history. Over the last five seasons, Bluder’s bunch has qualified for the Elite Eight three times and the national title game twice.

On the floor, Bluder has provided a baseline on style but adapts it to her personnel. Over the last 10 seasons, she ran her offense through a pure point guard (Sam Logic), a small forward (Ally Disterhoft), a Naismith-winning center (Megan Gustafson), a fiery combo guard (Kathleen Doyle) and Clark. Bluder has coached four players over that span who scored 2,100 career points (Clark, Gustafson, Monika Czinano and Disterhoft) with Clark and Gustafson recognized as the consensus national player of the year.

The wins validate Bluder’s resume. The way she consistently gets the most out of her talent is an overshadowed part of her legacy. Perhaps her greatest strength is ego management.

“If you know Lisa, check her ego. Is there one?” Jensen said. “Everybody feels they can have a cup of coffee with her. She never lets you know how great she is. (The players) see Lisa and me mopping the floor, Jenni (Fitzgerald) mopping the floor, literally and figuratively. That’s how she leads. That’s how she lives.”

“I’m proud of my team, though. Finishing national runner-up two years in a row is an amazing feat.”

🗣️ Lisa Bluder#WFinalFour pic.twitter.com/biYwWkLQOh

— Big Ten Women’s Basketball (@B1Gwbball) April 7, 2024

In the upcoming days, Bluder and her staff will examine her decimated roster and plan for the future. Clark, Martin, Marshall and Davis are gone. Key returnees include starters Hannah Stuelke (14 points per game) and Sydney Affolter (8.4 points), plus reserves Kylie Feuerbach, Addison O’Grady and Taylor McCabe. The Hawkeyes lose 64.7 percent of their scoring and 59.2 percent of their minutes. Iowa replenishes those losses with five newcomers, including four who are ranked among ESPN’s top 100 recruits.

There’s always the transfer portal, too.

But it’s going to take time for everyone to decompress after a long, intense season. Before the tears mix with pride. Before the names are removed from above their lockers. Before they comprehend what they meant to their sport, their state and to each other. Then it will hit them about how special they were to so many people. Then they will smile.

“They should go out of here being sad that it’s over,” Jensen said, “but really happy that it happened.”

(Photo: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)