Clark missed out on US collegiate basketball’s best prize, however her sport captured the creativeness of followers all over the place.
Caitlin Clark believes the thrill surrounding her trailblazing school basketball profession heralds a shiny future for ladies’s sport in the USA as she prepares to hitch the skilled ranks of the Ladies’s Nationwide Basketball Affiliation (WNBA).
The 22-year-old Iowa phenomenon signed off from collegiate sport on Sunday with a disappointing 87-75 defeat to South Carolina within the nationwide championship sport in Cleveland.
Nevertheless, Clark was capable of see silver linings within the loss after her record-breaking performances this 12 months helped smash attendance and tv scores data and drew international media consideration.
“After I take into consideration girls’s basketball going ahead, clearly it’s going to proceed to develop, whether or not it’s on the school stage or the WNBA stage,” Clark stated of her legacy.
“All people sees the viewership numbers. If you’re given the chance, girls’s sport thrives and that’s been the best half for me on this journey.
“We began the season taking part in in entrance of 55,000 individuals, now we’re ending it in entrance of 15 million individuals on TV. It simply continues to get higher and higher and that’s by no means going to cease.
“If you proceed to provide them the platform, issues like this are simply going to proceed to occur.”
Clark stated she hoped the success of Iowa would encourage leagues and media corporations to spend money on girls’s sport.
“It doesn’t matter what sport it’s, imagine in them the identical, spend money on them the identical, and issues are going to thrive,” she stated. “You see it with different sports activities. Proceed to speculate time, cash and assets for these individuals and provides them the alternatives; I feel that’s what’s going to drive girls’s sports activities in future.”
Clark stated the truth that Iowa had introduced new generations of followers to the game was one thing she would cherish without end.
“Individuals will bear in mind the moments that they shared at certainly one of our video games or watching on TV, and the way excited their daughter or son obtained about watching girls’s basketball,” Clark stated.
“That’s fairly cool; these are issues that imply essentially the most to me.”
Clark, who led the scoring with 30 factors in Sunday’s closing, admitted she anticipated to shed some tears as she processed her second straight defeat within the nationwide title sport.
“For me, the feelings will in all probability hit me over the subsequent couple of days; I don’t have a lot time to take a seat round and sulk and be upset,” Clark stated. “And I don’t assume that’s what I’m about both.
“Yeah I’m unhappy we misplaced this sport, however I’m additionally so happy with my teammates and our programme. There’s rather a lot to be happy with.
“However there’s going to be tears. It’s unhappy that that is throughout, and that is the final time I placed on an Iowa jersey.”
Clark’s achievements this season included beating Pete Maravich’s 54-year-old all-time school basketball scoring file, a mark that many felt was unbeatable.
She is just about assured to be chosen with the primary decide within the WNBA draft by the Indiana Fever later this month and will additionally be part of the US squad for the 2024 Paris Olympics.