On the day that the Iowa Hawkeyes retired Caitlin Clark’s basketball jersey, her former team delivered an upset win over No. 4 USC that harkened back to her time in Iowa City.
“Definitely, you are a little bit more vulnerable. I don’t have to go and compete for 40 minutes, even though I wish maybe I could.”
The unranked Hawkeyes (16–7) won big without Clark, the NCAA’s all-time leading scorer, on Sunday in a 76–69 upset of the No. 4 USC Trojans (19–3). It only added to the fanfare of a day that honored the player who has put women’s basketball on the map more so than any superstar in the game for years.
“Just very grateful and fortunate,” Clark said. “(I) feel very lucky that a lot of my former teammates and former coaches are here and able to support me, and a lot of friends and family.”
Former Iowa teammates and coaches included her college head coach, Lisa Bluder, who retired after last season. Clark’s former teammate and current WNBA star, Kate Martin, was also among the people present for the jersey retirement celebration after the game.
“You’ve shown everyone that you need to invest in women’s sports; why it’s wise to invest in women. It’s not only the right thing to do. It’s the smart thing to do.”
Clark averaged 28.4 points per game for her career amid her record 3,951. She led the Hawkeyes to back-to-back Final Fours and drew fans from all over wherever she played.
“She is the same today as when she came in,” Hawkeyes head coach Jan Jensen said during the ceremony. “She is full of confidence, she’s full of grace, and she has an unbelievable power to make everybody around her better.
“And the thing I'd like to close with, if you didn’t know, to celebrate this wonderful moment, she gave $22,000 to four different entities in this town to share her success and to say thank you. Caitlin, we wanna thank you. Lisa and I had a ride of a lifetime.”
Clark’s superstardom only continued in the WNBA last year when the Indiana Fever made her the No. 1 pick in the draft. She became the Rookie of the Year, led the Fever back to the playoffs for the first time in eight years, and packed arenas all over along the way.
New Fever head coach Stephanie White attended the ceremony, and Clark gave her a shout-out and mentioned her hopes of “hanging banners” in the coming years. The Fever hired White this offseason after parting ways with former head coach Christie Sides.
“Hopefully, year two is even better than year one, and I know it will be,” Clark said. “We’ve got some good players, we’ve got a good coach … thanks for being here [Steph].”
The Hawkeyes started the fanfare on Sunday with an 18–1 run to start the game, but the Trojans rallied to take the lead at halftime 29–28. Iowa held off the Trojans in the second half as senior guard Lucy Olsen led the way with 28 points.
Afterward, USC watched Clark’s jersey retirement despite the high-profile defeat. Trojans head coach Lindsay Gottlieb said the plan was to do that either way.
“There’s nothing I could say that hasn’t been said. But the respect she’s shown us, the humanity she’s shown us, I’m definitely a fan,” she said.
