The Iowa Hawkeyes registered a 71-69 win over the UConn Huskies on Friday, which secured their spot for the Championship game against South Carolina on Sunday. Even though the basketball world is buzzing about Caitlin Clark leading her team to back-to-back Finals appearances, former NCAA Champion Breanna Stewart’s recent take on the Iowa star has divided fans before the Final showdown.
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During a conversation with SiriusXM, Stewart was asked about Clark’s NCAA stint and her claim as one of the greats in women’s college basketball history. Stewart said that Clark needs to win a Championship to be deemed as one of the greats and without that, she can’t be in that conversation.
The two-time WNBA Champion said, “You’re gonna look 10 years back and you’re gonna see all the records she has broken and points and stuff like that, but anybody knows…your goal when you play college basketball is to win a national championship. So you need one.”
As someone who has won the NCAA trophy four times, it is understandable why Stewart would think that way. However, the comment didn’t sit well with some fans, who seemed to believe that the 29-year-old is dismissing Clark’s greatness because she feels threatened by it. Hawkeyes’ insider for 247Sports, David Eickholt responded to Stewart’s comment by declaring that the older generation of female basketball players are threatened by the new Caitlin Clark wave. “The old generation is so threatened by Caitlin Clark that they are interested in protecting their own legacies instead of acknowledging how Clark has ascended the game. Narcissism at its finest,” Eickholt wrote.
Broadcaster Kylen Mills said that Stewart’s definition of greatness is skewed because she fails to take into account that her four trophies came from playing alongside some of the greatest players in NCAA history, whereas Clark is doing things with little to no help.
One fan commented that Clark has already surpassed the NCAA legacy of the likes of Stewart, and she doesn’t need to worry about catering to her idea of greatness.
Another fan said that the older players who come from a dynasty driven team setup should not be the ones to speak on Clark. The fan also stated that the Iowa star deserves a spot on the Mount Rushmore regardless of what happens on Sunday.
A newly minted women’s college basketball fan said that he has no idea who Breanna Stewart is and he only started watching the sport two years ago because of the Caitlin Clark takeover.
Caitlin Clark has already done enough to cement her legacy
What we’re witnessing in women’s college basketball is historic and this kind of wave doesn’t come around very often. Clark’s record-breaking spree alone can be taken as an example of the major shift that is happening in the sport. About a month ago, Clark broke Kelsey Plum’s 3,527-point record to become the all-time points leader in NCAA women’s basketball history. A week after that, she broke Pete Maravich’s 54-year-old record of 3,667 career points to become the all-time leader in men’s and women’s divisions combined.
Apart from that, her biggest achievement has been the attention that she has managed to bring to the game, which is also helping in the overall growth of women’s basketball. If a player has managed to do all of that and so much more, associating their legacy with a championship trophy is dismissive to say the least.
