Cleveland — Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers first met in college in a game that seems like a lifetime ago, before either had made a national semifinal or won a player of the year award.
It was March 2021, and the NCAA tournament was held in a “bubble,” marking the end of a season devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The women’s tournament had not yet grown in popularity, and thus couldn’t even employ March Madness branding.
Bueckers and Clark were only freshmen, but they were already two of the sport’s top personalities, with the former on her way to being named consensus national player of the year. Bueckers’ top-ranked UConn Huskies defeated Clark’s No. 5 seed Iowa Hawkeyes 92-72 in a highly anticipated Sweet 16 battle at the Alamodome, despite the fact that neither team led the game in scoring.
“Honestly, that game is super blurry,” Clark said Thursday. “I saw some old footage of that game and we both look really, really young.”
Their paths diverged from there. Bueckers missed the most of the previous two seasons due to injury, while Clark led Iowa to its first Final Four in 30 years, winning multiple player of the year accolades and rising at the vanguard of women’s college basketball’s current surge.
Now, just two wins away from the NCAA title that has eluded them, their careers will collide one last time on the collegiate stage. After the season, Clark will move on to the WNBA, while Bueckers will return to Storrs for another
season. And, while they’ve repeatedly stated that Friday’s national semifinal (9 p.m. ET, ESPN/ESPN App) is Iowa vs. UConn rather than an individual matchup, it seems right that the stars meet again at the pinnacle of women’s basketball’s spectacular climb.
“[The sport] needs some stars,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma stated. “It needs people that have the right personality, the right game, and we have that now.”
BUECKERS AND CLARK are both 6-foot guards with distinct game styles. However, previous to their individual journeys to Iowa and UConn, their paths shared more similarities than differences.
Both highly touted Midwestern prospects — Bueckers from Hopkins, Minnesota, and Clark from West Des Moines, Iowa — competed on the same AAU circuit and were ranked No. 1 and No. 4 in their class by ESPN. The two also played together on USA Basketball’s young teams that won gold at the 2019 FIBA U19 World Cup and the 2017 FIBA Americas U16 Championship.
Bueckers was regarded as the next UConn great before she ever arrived in Storrs. She lived up to the hype by being the first freshman to win every national player of the year award for which she was eligible. After defeating Iowa in San Antonio, she led the Huskies to the 2021 national semifinals, where they were defeated by Arizona.
The rest of Buecker’s journey has not gone as planned. As a sophomore, she was limited to 17 games due to a knee injury, but she returned for the postseason to lead the Huskies to the national championship game, where they were defeated by South Carolina. She tore her ACL in August 2022, forcing her to miss the whole 2022-23 season.
After being away from the game for so long, Bueckers appreciates UConn’s trip to Cleveland even more.
“[Making the Final Four is] one of the most rewarding feelings I’ve ever felt in my life,” Bueckers said after scoring 28 points, grabbing 10 rebounds, and dishing out 6 assists against top seed USC on Monday.
“Just seeing where I was a year ago and now, doing individual workouts, starting to feel the basketball again, getting the ball in my hands and playing. Now I’m here with my teammates and coaching staff, heading to the Final Four.”
Clark said she contacted Bueckers before the season to wish her luck and let her know she was pulling for her.
“I’ve watched UConn quite a bit,” said Clark, who leads the country with 32.0 PPG. “They’re just a fundamentally sound, incredibly strong basketball club. They’re a team you’ll always want to watch.
Anchoring an injury-laden Huskies squad, Bueckers has arguably surpassed her freshman campaign, playing out of position at power forward and asserting herself more as a staunch defender, all while maintaining her trademark efficiency from all over the floor. And she has elevated her game even more in the postseason, where she’s averaging 27.9 points, 8.7 rebounds, 4.7 assists, 3.1 steals and 2.6 blocks — in part because she has learned to give herself grace amid this trying first year back from injury.
“At the beginning of the Big East tournament, I just told myself that I play so much better when I’m playing with joy and not thinking about the pressures that come with playing at UConn, expecting to win every single game no matter who’s out on the floor,” Bueckers said last month before UConn’s second-round NCAA tournament game.
“So just getting back to playing with joy, playing with so much energy and passion that it’s contagious and you’re not even thinking about ‘What if we lose?’ or ‘What if we do this?’ or ‘What if we do that?'”
CLARK TOOK CENTER STAGE IN 2023. After leading Iowa to its second Final Four and first since 1993, she scored 41 points as the Hawkeyes defeated unbeaten South Carolina in the national semifinals. The Iowa-LSU championship game in April received 9.9 million viewers, making it the most-watched women’s collegiate basketball game in history.
Clark has continued to take the country by storm this season with her logo 3-pointers and sharp passing. On Feb. 15, she broke Kelsey Plum’s NCAA women’s scoring record. Two weeks later, she passed Lynette Woodard’s women’s major-college record (Woodard played in the AIAW, which preceded the NCAA in governing women’s sports). On March 3, Clark eclipsed Pete Maravich’s Division I scoring record for men or women.
And in the Hawkeyes’ Elite Eight win over LSU, Clark moved past Pearl Moore, who held the women’s all-college scoring record, and reached 540 3-pointers, the NCAA women’s record. Clark now has 3,900 points, along with 1,132 assists. With every milestone, she has acknowledged the legends of the past, but has also said all that really matters is Iowa winning.
Clark says a loss during her sophomore season altered the course of her career. The No. 2 seed Hawkeyes lost 64-62 at home to No. 10 seed Creighton, an upset Clark had to deal with for months.
“I don’t think my career evolves in the way that it did if we didn’t lose to Creighton,” Clark went on to say. “That was perhaps the lowest point of my career. Every athlete has experienced one of these moments. I had to look in the mirror, as did our entire staff.
However, Clark believes that there has been far too much emphasis on Auriemma’s failure to recruit her, as revealed in a recent ESPN story.
“Everyone grows up believing they’ll go to UConn. Like, it’s UConn. “Everybody wants to be recruited by Geno,” Clark explained. “During my recruiting process, I made a number of trips. I quickly realized I wanted to be close to the state of Iowa, which excluded all other teams in the country save those from the Midwest. The most important aspect was determining what I like and what would lead to my success. I believe I made the proper decision.
“I am not sure if my career will continue as it has if I do not stay in Iowa. When you’re a youngster from Iowa, the entire state will most likely rally around you. That is a location I can return to.
They have already helped to improve their respective programs. Bueckers has led the Huskies to the Final Four every year she has been healthy, while Clark has lead Iowa’s two-year streak.
However, a lot has changed on the court since the two faced off in 2021. Bueckers did not play in the Huskies’ seven-point triumph over the Hawkeyes at the Phil Knight Legacy Invitational last season. Having observed from afar, she has witnessed Clark’s shooting range and basketball skills improve.
“She’s just a competitor,” Bueckers said of Clark. “She wants to win. She has just intangibles of the game. She knows how to play, a great IQ. I think the biggest thing about her is she competes, and she’s just a winner. She wants to win at all costs.”
Clark sees the ways in which her and Bueckers’ games are similar but also “very different.” Bueckers plays off the ball whereas Clark tends to have the ball in her hands.
“Her game is just so smooth, she’s fun to watch,” Clark said of Bueckers. “She moves effortlessly out there like it’s just so natural. Then she additionally works really hard at it.
“Paige has always been one of the most dominant players, that has never changed. She’s always been able to go up against the best.”
Two of the top players in the NCAA game will face off on Friday. “They know what’s what,” Auriemma stated. “And Caitlin comes down and makes a huge 3, don’t think that Paige is going to pass the next one up and pass it to somebody.”
But, at the end of the day, the individual matchup, honors, and attention are irrelevant to either player as they strive for the one goal they have yet to achieve: winning a national championship.
Leave a Reply