IOWA CITY, Iowa — No matter the year or accomplishment, the Iowa women’s basketball team begins the day the same way: in a circle with feet touching feet.
“We say what matters is right here,” guard Kate Martin said. “Anything outside doesn’t matter. We care about each other’s opinions in this circle. We care about what the person to our left and to our right are doing, and it doesn’t really matter what Jimmy on Twitter thinks about us.”
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That approach could apply even more this year for the Hawkeyes, who are coming off an NCAA Tournament runner-up finish and boast the returning national player of the year in Caitlin Clark. The interest and scrutiny will be intense this year. But so is the popularity.
Iowa set the Big Ten record last year in average women’s basketball attendance at 11,142 fans per game. This year, its attendance will dwarf every number before it. Two days after the Hawkeyes fell to LSU in the championship, the athletics department paused season-ticket sales for the upcoming season because demand outpaced supply. Once the pause was lifted, the entire season ticket allotment at 15,056-seat Carver-Hawkeye Arena sold out on Aug. 14. The program will stage an exhibition against DePaul on Oct. 15 at Kinnick Stadium. More than 47,000 tickets are sold to what is called “The Crossover at Kinnick.” For the first time, every Iowa women’s basketball Big Ten game will be available on television or a primary streaming service.
Back-✌️- Back 🤩
For the second straight year, @CaitlinClark22 is the B1G Preseason Player of the Year! #Hawkeyes pic.twitter.com/MuBMBdhPln
— Iowa Women’s Basketball (@IowaWBB) October 4, 2023
“If you start thinking about the big picture, it can get a little overwhelming for anybody,” coach Lisa Bluder said. “These are 18-, 19-year-old young women. So I think us as adults, we have to kind of keep it in perspective a little bit, and … your emotions rub off on them, there’s no doubt. I think as a coach you have to lead in that way, and to us, we’re trying to enjoy it.
“I’ve stole this quote from Billy Jean King many a times and, in fact, I’m reading the book right now, ‘Pressure is a Privilege.’ So I think we have to remember that we’re in this situation of facing pressure because we’ve done well. Let’s enjoy that. Let’s rejoice about that.”
Through Midwest T-shirt outlet RayGun, several Iowa players have their own T-shirts, and they are among the most popular sold by the company. They include Gabbie Marshall (Grit Like Gabbie), Kate Martin (Money Martin and ‘The Glue’), Hannah Stuelke (Happy Like Hannah), and Clark’s “Damn It,” the phrase she used after missing a free throw last season which earned her a technical foul. Their names and faces rival football and men’s basketball players in celebrity status within a college sports-crazy state.
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“We still get people coming up to us and saying how much joy we brought them, how we brought the community together, how exciting we were to watch and how people just wanted to support us,” Marshall said. “I think that feeling of bringing people joy through a sport, it’s unreal. It’s hard to put into words.
“It’s overwhelming the support that we are given each day and each night. I mean, we sold out our season tickets in a matter of minutes. That’s unheard of. You don’t see that everywhere.”
That intense passion for Iowa — and Clark — has also spilled to other venues. Last year in Big Ten arenas, games against Iowa averaged 3,482 more fans than a typical conference gate. The Hawkeyes’ loss to LSU reached 9.9 million viewers, the most-watched Division I women’s basketball game ever and up 103 percent from the 2022 title game. Five of the six most-viewed BTN women’s games in history involved the Hawkeyes and each round of the Big Ten tournament involving Iowa last year set a tournament attendance record.
One player tops the charts for Iowa, and it isn’t close. Clark, the unanimous women’s basketball player of the year and recent Sullivan Award winner as the nation’s top amateur athlete, has become an icon in the state and an advocate for her sport.
Clark’s basketball numbers are astounding, especially for a point guard. In three seasons, she has 2,717 points and led the nation with 1,055 points last year. She was the first player in women’s basketball history with more than 1,000 points and 300 assists in the same season and was the first to have a 40-point triple-double in the NCAA Tournament. Clark needs only 811 points to set the all-time scoring record, currently held by Washington’s Kelsey Plum, who scored 3,527 points from 2014-17.
But it’s not just Clark’s scoring prowess that has people emulating her. It’s the combination of her on-court swagger and logo 3-point shots coupled with humility and respect off the floor. She was the Academic All-American of the Year and views herself as a role model. At several road games last year, notably at Nebraska, she stayed for more than 45 minutes afterward to sign autographs for fans wearing opposing colors.
Caitlin Clark on fifth-year decision to stay at Iowa or go to WNBA: ‘I’m just going to trust my gut’https://t.co/AqK1Vw4tIK
— Scott Dochterman (@ScottDochterman) October 4, 2023
Nowhere is her adoration more evident than in Iowa. In June, the Triple-A Iowa Cubs held Caitlin Clark Night and some fans stood in line for up to 12 hours to get her autograph. Clark participated at the John Deere Classic Pro-Am in Silvis, Ill., and her gallery overshadowed that of former headliner and state of Iowa golfing legend Zach Johnson.
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At a celebration at the University of Iowa Pentacrest last April, more than 9,000 fans attended and as many boys wore Clark 22 T-shirts as girls.
Clark’s combination of sizzle and spice on the court with sweetness on the side has elevated her stature alongside Nile Kinnick as the ultimate icon in Iowa sports history and a showstopper for the sporting public.
“She understands she’s the face of basketball. She can’t help but understand that,” Bluder said. “But I don’t think she’s so consumed with it that it takes away from her game. I think she’s still going to play with passion. She’s going to play with emotion. Sometimes, as we know, that emotion is good, and sometimes that emotion isn’t good.
“We all have some “Damn It” T-shirts in our closets. Somebody told me don’t say ‘Whoa,’ to a racehorse,’ I’m never going to do that to her.”
Not that Clark would allow that anyway. She embraces her role as an ambassador for women’s athletics and the on-court thrills that have made her — and Iowa — successful.
“The biggest thing is just soaking it in,” Clark said. “It kind of takes you back for a second because I feel like I was just that young girl that was playing basketball, and I still feel like a very normal individual. But I can’t really, especially in the state of Iowa, go out in public without being recognized.
“It’s always only really good things, and it’s cool to see people rally behind this team, whether it’s just in our state, but across the country. I’ll be traveling and people will even recognize me for who I am, and it’s cool to see the amount of attention you brought to women’s basketball and our team brought to women’s basketball.”
It’s not just Clark that makes the Hawkeyes a national title contender. Martin and Marshall are two critical extra-year returnees for the Hawkeyes. Martin was fourth in Iowa scoring at 7.7 points per game but had 136 total assists and 4.2 rebounds a game. Marshall is the team’s best defender and tied for second in 3-pointers last year with 58. Stuelke, a sophomore, is a budding star.
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Both the Big Ten coaches and media selected Iowa as the preseason favorite, but the competition nationally will remain fierce with LSU, UConn and other NCAA championship favorites. Clark’s charisma and skill may stand out in the public arena, but no matter how the Hawkeyes finish, she wants the sport to shine as bright as her team.
“Going into this year I hope to continue to (bring attention) and show people this is something you should continue to watch,” Clark said. “And not only watch Iowa women’s basketball. There’s tremendous basketball all across the country. It’s been that way for a while, but I’m glad they’re just catching on. … I hope they stay.”
(Photo of Caitlin Clark: Scott Dochterman / The Athletic)
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