TIME Magazine named Indiana Fever superstar, Caitlin Clark, as their 2024 Athlete of the Year. The award is certainly deserving, as Clark is a major catalyst for the enormous surge of interest in the WNBA and women’s basketball as a collective. Clark made a name for herself during her four seasons at Iowa. Although she carried her dominance with her in her professional career, Clark admits the elevated intelligence of the sport from her opponents required an adjustment period.
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In addition to receiving the prestigious honor, Clark sat down with TIME to share details from her experiences over the past year. The 2024 WNBA season marked her first in the league. She opened up about the challenges she faced in comparison to her collegiate career. She said,
“Professional players and professional coaches—this is no disrespect to college women’s basketball—are a lot smarter. I love women’s college basketball. But if you go back and watch the way people guarded me in college, it’s almost, like, concerning. They didn’t double me, they didn’t trap me, they weren’t physical.”
Clark stole the hearts of basketball fans with her incredible three-point shooting and great passing. However, in her first few weeks in the WNBA, the quality of shots she used to get in college soon faded. The physicality was unlike anything she had encountered at Iowa. She attributed this period of difficulties on professional players’ higher IQ.
Clark’s comments aren’t a shot at college basketball but an honest evaluation. She highlights that most of the women in college basketball, “will never go on to play another basketball game,” once their collegiate career is over. An unfortunate reality for the majority of student-athletes.
However, due to the simplification of the game in college, Clark’s dominance was on full display. She led Iowa to multiple deep runs in March Madness. However, she also finished her college career as the all-time leading scorer in Division 1 history for women and men with 3,951 points.
Caitlin Clark struggled initially in the WNBA
The dominance of the 6-foot guard in college led many to believe she’d easily carry it over to the WNBA. Unfortunately, that didn’t turn out to be true.
Clark struggled in the first few weeks of her professional career. The Fever began the season with a 1-8 record, and Clark couldn’t find success in her play either, missing plenty of shots and finishing some games with more turnovers than assists.
Dijonai Carrington is putting the clamps on Caitlin Clark 🔒 pic.twitter.com/pGQ7MlXIqb
— ESPN (@espn) May 15, 2024
However, once the season took a break for the Olympics, things took a turn for the better. Clark finished the season averaging 23.1 points, 5.4 rebounds and 8.9 assists per game. The most impressive part of her performance was she led the Fever to an improbable playoff appearance berth. Indiana finished 9-5 in their last 14 games of the season.
Her level of success to conclude her rookie season laid the groundwork for expansion in the coming years.
