Iowa's Caitlin Clark gets her 16th triple-double and moves closer to more records


Iowa Hawkeyes guard Caitlin Clark recorded her 16th career triple-double on Sunday, moved closer to career scoring marks and had a place on the Carver-Hawkeye Arena floor in her memory.

After a tough loss Thursday at Indiana, the No. 4 Hawkeyes looked much more like themselves in a 101-85 win over Illinois in Iowa City, Iowa. Clark had 24 points, 15 rebounds and 10 assists, his fifth 3-pointer. -double this season. He was one assist away from that Thursday in an 86-69 loss in Bloomington, Indiana.

Iowa has won all 16 games in which Clark had a triple-double. Her career total ranks second among NCAA Division I men's or women's players behind Oregon's Sabrina Ionescu, who had 26 triple-doubles from 2016 to 2020.

Before Sunday's matchup, a “22 Clark” sticker was plastered on the court at the spot where Clark hit a deep 3-pointer on Feb. 15 against Michigan that broke the NCAA women's basketball scoring record, previously held by Kelsey Plum from Washington.

“I didn't really see it until I went out to warm up,” Clark said of the decal. “I knew it, because the coach [Lisa] Bluder had told me. He is great. Honestly, it seems a little further back than where he actually shot it, but that's where they say I shot it from.

“It's super special; that's something I'll always remember and a shot I'll always remember. I'm grateful for this university and the athletics department that wanted to do that; they didn't have to.”

Clark is now at 3,617 points; she will need 33 to pass Kansas' Lynette Woodard for the women's major-college record. Woodard, who played in the pre-NCAA era from 1977 to 1981, scored 3,649 points and is the AIAW record holder at major colleges. Pearl Moore, who played at Francis Marion from 1975-79, holds the AIWA overall/small school record with 3,884.

Clark is 51 points away from surpassing LSU's Pete Maravich, the NCAA Division I men's and women's record holder with 3,667. Maravich played from 1967 to 1970, before becoming freshman eligible. Maravich, Moore and Woodard all played before the 3-point line was implemented in college basketball.

The Hawkeyes, who made 17 3-pointers on Sunday, moved to 24-4 overall, and are tied for second in the Big Ten at 13-3 behind Ohio State (15-1). The lack of balanced scoring hurt the Hawkeyes in their loss at Indiana, but it was remedied on Sunday. Three other Iowa starters besides Clark scored in double figures and the Hawkeyes scored 25 points off the bench.

“We felt like we were really revved up offensively at Indiana,” Clark said. “We didn't make any shots either. We made a lot of good shots, but there were also a lot of things we could have done a lot better on the offensive end. Coming back here, you want to have a really good performance.” and feel great about yourself heading into the final week of regular season play. I thought that's exactly what we did.”

The Hawkeyes have two regular-season games remaining: Wednesday at Minnesota and next Sunday at home against Ohio State.

“I'm really happy with the way we threw the ball from different people,” Bluder said. “For us to be really successful, that's what we have to be. We want people to step up, because that makes Caitlin's job easier.”

Clark added: “That's what we're going to need going forward. It can't be one or two people. It's hard to play box-and-one, it's hard to play zone when we throw the ball like this. Hopefully, it was just a good learning experience for us in Indiana and showed us things we need to clean up. Their environment was great, so that might have sped us up too. So we just stayed a little calmer.”

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