Iowa Hawkeyes star Caitlin Clark recently concluded another very successful NCAA season, the last one of her collegiate stint. Even though the Iowa star couldn’t get her hands on the National Championship, she made history with her record-breaking spree all season long, which spiked the March Madness numbers for Women’s basketball viewership to unprecedented proportions. Quite surprisingly, towards the end of her campaign, something strange started to happen as a lot of people came out criticizing her. The noise increased after Clark’s Iowa side lost in the Finals once again, with the 22-year-old star’s college stint concluding without a National title.
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During a recent interview with ESPN, Clark revealed how she is going to handle all the negativity in the next phase of her career.
The naysayers or the haters had started slamming Clark, citing the lack of national championship in her resume. Meanwhile, some former players seemed indignant about Clark’s growing popularity as well. Sadly, some of the people trying to belittle her feats were also pioneers of women’s basketball and they struggled to put their jealousy aside to give Clark her deserved flowers.
During her recent sit-down with ESPN, Clark said that this is not new to her. In fact, she has faced the same negativity throughout her college career as well. Clark further added that she never takes these opinions seriously and keeps the same energy for the compliments she gets as well.
Addressing the possible forthcoming barrage of negativity awaiting her at the start of her WNBA career, she said, “Everybody’s entitled to their own opinion, but I think the biggest thing for myself is like just having confidence in who I am and what I’ve been able to do with my career. By no means do I think I’m gonna go in there and score 30 points a game, but I think I’m confident in my abilities and that’s what I’m excited for.”
Clark is set to bring a huge amount of viewership to the WNBA with her superstardom. The league’s teams are already gearing up to monetize the ‘Caitlin Clark Effect’. However, she will have to perform against the competition there to retain the support of her fans.
Caitlin Clark’s record-breaking college stint
According to several mock WNBA Drafts issued in the last few months, Clark is going to be the number one draft pick this year. She is expected to sign with the Indiana Fever who have the first pick. When you look at the things she has done over the last few years, it makes sense why she would be the obvious choice to go number one. A list of accomplishments compiled by ESPN shows that in the last four years, Clark was absolutely ruthless in breaking records.
In her senior year alone, she became the Big Ten’s all-time leader in assists, Iowa’s all-time leader in assists, all-time leader in points among major women’s college basketball players, career leading scorer in the Big Ten tournament, NCAA single-season record holder for 3-pointers, Naismith Player of the Year for the second year in a row, and this is barely scratching the surface. Safe to say, she is going to shut down all the noise and take women’s basketball to new heights.
