This comes as no surprise. Caitlin Clark, the dynamic and explosive shooting guard who also has a gift for precision passing, who was born and raised in Iowa, who set the NCAA all-time scoring mark and brought a treasure-trove of fans in a newfound popularity for women’s basketball that shattered records for attendance and television viewership, was selected No. 1 overall in the WNBA Draft by the Indiana Fever on Monday night.
Clark, 6-foot-0, joins a young and hungry Fever team with 2023 WNBA Rookie of the Year Aliyah Boston from the University of South Carolina. The Fever finished a disappointing 13-27 last season and has missed the playoffs in each of the past seven seasons. Now, the Fever are receiving love and are seeing action at sportsbooks as being one of the few betting favorites to win it all.
“I got a little anxious there before the pick,” Clark said with a laugh during an interview with ESPN’s Holly Rowe. “I dreamed of this moment since I was in second grade, and it’s taken a lot of hard work, a lot of ups and downs, but more than anything, just trying to soak it in.”
The 22-year-old native of West Des Moines, Iowa, electrified crowds and left them on the edge of their seats wherever she played this season due to her Steph Curry-like shooting range, consistently knocking down logo 3s with ease, and her playmaking prowess, always setting up her teammates for easy baskets.
Embed from Getty ImagesClark engineered the Hawkeyes to back-to-back national championship game appearances, where they lost to South Carolina, 87-75. While accomplishing this, she led the nation in eight offensive categories, including scoring 31.6 points per game, 3-point makes and 3-point attempts. She also ranked second in assists per game while crashing the glass averaging 7.4 rebounds. She put a bow on her career with an unbelievable 3,951 points, and a record 548 3-point makes.
She says goodbye to Hawkeye Nation with a laundry list of an impressive individual awards, winning the AP Player of the Year award, Wooden Award, and Naismith Award twice each.
The anticipation of Clark coming into the league is uncharted territory, with teams having to change arenas when the Fever come to town and selling out tickets in anticipation of her playing in their cities. The Connecticut Sun, which kickoff their season against the Fever at home on May 14, sold nearly 800 tickets within 24 hours of the schedule being released. The Las Vegas Aces, the two-time defending champions, moved their July 2 home game against Indiana from the 12,000-seat Michelob Ultra Arena to T-Mobile Arena, which has a capacity of nearly twice the size 20,000.
Even the WNBA Draft, which was open to fans for the first time in eight years, sold out its 1,000-ticket allotment at the Brooklyn Academy of Music within 15 minutes of going on sale.
Clark has her own cereal box, State Farm commercials and just this past weekend appeared as herself on “Saturday Night Live.” Now, her biggest challenge, and biggest opportunity, awaits.
“I earned it, that’s why I’m so proud of it,” Clark told Rowe.
