Indiana Fever choose Iowa’s Caitlin Clark No. 1 in 2024 WNBA draft

NEW YORK — Caitlin Clark is formally a professional.

Clark, the record-breaking face of ladies’s faculty basketball, was chosen No. 1 total by the Indiana Fever within the 2024 WNBA draft Monday evening on the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

“I acquired slightly anxious there earlier than the decide,” Clark stated with amusing throughout an interview with ESPN’s Holly Rowe. “I have been dreaming of this second since I used to be in second grade … greater than something, attempting to soak it in.”

Stanford’s Cameron Brink was the second participant off the board, going to the Los Angeles Sparks. Brink is the third Stanford participant chosen within the prime two of the WNBA draft, becoming a member of Chiney Ogwumike and Nneka Ogwumike. The one faculty with extra is UConn.

Chicago had the third decide, which the Sky used to pick out South Carolina’s Kamilla Cardoso, the 2024 Remaining 4 Most Excellent Participant. Cardoso’s 59.4% discipline aim share in 2023-24 led the SEC and ranked fifteenth total in Division I. South Carolina has now had 11 gamers chosen within the first spherical during the last 10 seasons, the second most of any program in draft historical past after UConn. .

The Sparks have been again on the clock at No. 4 and selected Tennessee’s Rickea Jackson, who was certainly one of 5 SEC gamers to common no less than 20 factors and 5 rebounds in a number of seasons during the last 25 years. Jackson is certainly one of two Tennessee gamers with 30 factors and 10 rebounds in an NCAA match sport, the opposite being Candace Parker, who started her profession with the Sparks as nicely.

Ohio State’s Jacy Sheldon went fifth to the Dallas Wings.

Clark, a 6-foot-0 guard and West Des Moines, Iowa, native enters the league on prime of the world. A two-time nationwide participant of the 12 months, Clark ended her collegiate profession with 3,951 factors, probably the most in males’s and ladies’s Division I historical past, whereas propelling the Iowa Hawkeyes to back-to-back nationwide title sport appearances, their first in program historical past.

Her emblem 3-pointers, highlight-reel assists and offensive firepower (she averaged 31.6 factors per sport as a senior, and 28.4 factors for her profession) have drawn sellout crowds in Iowa Metropolis and on the street, whereas shattering tv rankings throughout a large number of tv networks and streaming platforms alongside the best way.

She has her personal cereal field, State Farm commercials and simply this previous weekend appeared as herself on “Saturday Night time Dwell.” Now, her largest problem, and largest alternative, awaits.

“I earned it, that is why I am so pleased with it,” Clark informed Rowe.

The Fever have not appeared within the playoffs since 2016, the legendary Tamika Catchings’ ultimate season. However with Clark becoming a member of forces with final 12 months’s No. 1 total decide in Aliyah Boston, the pairing of generational powers appears destined to alter the trajectory of the franchise — and probably the league — for the years to come back.

Winners of the 2012 WNBA title, Indiana has languished since Catchings’ retirement, sporting the worst successful share within the league for the reason that begin of the 2017 season regardless of choosing lottery picks in every of the final seven drafts. 4 of these seven picks are not with the crew.

Indicators of progress emerged this previous season with Boston, the franchise’s first-ever No. 1 decide, in tow, as they received 13 video games, tied for probably the most since Catchings’ retirement. With Clark now within the combine, it appears nicely inside attain for the franchise to snap what’s at the moment the league’s longest lively streak lacking the playoffs.

Clark, the one Division I girls’s participant with greater than 3,000 factors and 1,000 assists, may have two equally younger however elite put up targets in Boston, the reigning rookie of the 12 months, and NaLyssa Smith, a 2022 lottery decide. After Clark developed sturdy chemistry with Iowa posts Monika Czinano and Hannah Stuelke, the connections she, Boston and Smith can kind in Indianapolis are tantalizing prospects for Fever followers.

Clark will even share the backcourt with two veteran guards in Kelsey Mitchell, No. 4 on the NCAA Division I all-time scoring record and a prime 3-point shooter within the league final season, in addition to returning level guard Erica Wheeler.

ESPN Stats & Data contributed to this report.