Caitlin Clark is 1 of 1: ‘We have by no means seen a girl play like this’

Caitlin Clark is the most effective offensive participant we have seen in girls’s faculty basketball in at the very least the previous three many years. Her factors complete, whereas huge and now unmatched, solely tells a part of the story. Whereas we have seen unimaginable scorers — Lynette Woodard, Kelsey Plum, Maya Moore, Jackie Stiles, Brittney Griner — we have NEVER seen a girl play like this.

The constant vary on the Iowa senior’s shot, and her willingness to often pull up from deep, makes her totally different. This season, she has made 88 photographs from 25 toes or past. Prior to now 5 years, the following highest single-season complete by somebody apart from Clark is 51 (Indiana guard Sara Scalia in 2021-22), in keeping with CBB Analytics. Defenders have to select her up as quickly as she crosses half courtroom, or else she is inside makeable vary.

Steph Curry and Damian Lillard are the one different half-court threats who come to thoughts. Clark’s mere presence on the courtroom manipulates particular person and workforce defenses and creates higher spacing for every of her teammates.

However it’s her passing that elevates her above the opposite nice scorers within the girls’s sport. Her passing makes her not solely the most effective scorer but in addition the most effective all-around offensive participant.

Clark is the finest “get-ahead” passer since Sue Chook and Diana Taurasi.

Clark sees teammates operating the ground and sometimes launches a lead move earlier than they’ve even turned their heads to know it is coming. She is elite within the two-man sport and elite studying defenses and understanding tips on how to ship a move by the smallest window.

Whereas we have fun Clark because the main scorer within the historical past of NCAA Division I basketball for women and men after she handed Pete Maravich’s mark Sunday, we won’t ignore that she can be sixth all time in assists within the girls’s sport. No different participant is within the prime 28 of each. (Profession help knowledge, bizarrely, solely contains the highest 28 gamers. There’s an opportunity nobody else is within the prime 65, the place Sabrina Ionescu lands in scoring whereas fourth in assists.)

Clark can be the one basketball participant in a significant convention to guide it in scoring and assists in 4 consecutive seasons.

Everybody now is aware of that @IowaWBB ‘s @CaitlinClark22 tops the NCAA profession scoring checklist. Not many know she’s sixth in profession assists as properly. (For context, no different participant is within the prime 25 of each.) We broke down a few of her elite passes from the record-setting sport. pic.twitter.com/7iQsFIyRJh

— Rebecca Lobo (@RebeccaLobo) February 19, 2024

Lastly, she is a superb teammate. Whereas she makes an attempt the second-most discipline targets within the nation — her 22.6 makes an attempt per sport are behind USC freshman JuJu Watkins’ 22.8 makes an attempt — she hardly ever forces photographs. I’ve not seen her launch a deep 3 when a teammate is open for a greater look. I’ve by no means seen a teammate slump-shouldered as a result of Clark did not move her the ball when open. Does Clark typically look annoyed when a move is mishandled? Sure, however you at all times get the sense she is annoyed with the play and never the participant. And it’s evident that her teammates love enjoying alongside her.

Considered one of my favourite Clark moments of the season occurred throughout Iowa’s sport with Michigan. It wasn’t Clark’s eight factors within the first two minutes that gave her the ladies’s NCAA scoring document. And it wasn’t any of her subsequent 33 factors or 13 assists.

It was a call she made proper earlier than popping out of the sport. With a minute to go within the sport and Clark sitting at 49 factors, she received the ball in transition — and as an alternative of coming down and attempting to get the 50-piece, she despatched a get-ahead move to teammate Hannah Stuelke, who was fouled. Passing the ball was the correct determination in that second and Clark made the correct — not the egocentric — determination.

It is uncommon that somebody comes alongside and adjustments how a sport is performed. Clark has accomplished that. Her scoring, coupled along with her passing, make her the most effective offensive participant I’ve seen in my 35 years enjoying and overlaying the ladies’s faculty sport.