Caitlin Clark is gone. Where does women’s college basketball go next?

[ad_1]

CLEVELAND — And then it was over. Confetti fell. At 5:10 p.m. Sunday, inside Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, Caitlin Clark was not at the center of the basketball world but maybe 10 steps away.

South Carolina celebrated nearby, arms and heads all tangled in joy. The Gamecocks, not Iowa, had just won the national title, meaning Clark had lost in the championship game for a second straight year. She stood behind her coaches, waiting to shake hands. She was, in that moment, a living artifact — a breathing, sighing reason for so much change. She just would have to leave college without winning the final game of a season.

Of course, that’s not how Clark’s influence on women’s college basketball will be measured. Whether the Hawkeyes won or lost, the sport was going to wake up Monday and face life without the mind-bending star — better off that it had her but responsible for using the 6-foot guard as a trampoline. Clark didn’t just change the game in four years at Iowa. She created her own economy, turning talent into business, then business into progress.

Five years ago, this was how ESPN ranked the top of the 2020 high school recruiting class: Paige Bueckers, Angel Reese, Cameron Brink, Clark and Kamilla Cardoso, who helped South Carolina finish 38-0 on Sunday. But because only Bueckers isn’t turning pro this month, how does women’s college basketball make this explosion in popularity last?

“The WNBA getting it right,” Candace Parker, an all-time great, said Sunday. “I think that’s the next thing. So whatever that means.”

“You got three hours?” she asked with a laugh. “I want to stop the conversation that your heyday is in college. I hope that stops with this generation.”

“This team came along at a really good time,” Clark said during her postgame news conference, “whether it was social media, whether it was NIL, whether it was our games being nationally televised. We’ve played on Fox, NBC, CBS, ESPN — you go down the list, and we’ve been on every national television channel. I think that’s been one of the biggest things that has helped us. No matter what sport it is, give them the same opportunities, believe in them the same, invest in them the same, and things are really going to thrive.”

This women’s basketball boom has been driven by stars, with Clark at the forefront. Parker wants the next chapter to be defined by rivalries. She wants ESPN to find a prime-time slot when Clark and Reese first match up in the WNBA. It shouldn’t matter what jerseys they’re wearing — just like Larry Bird vs. Magic Johnson transcended the 1979 title game between Indiana State and Michigan State.

The WNBA also should pay better, Parker added. But if the league can convert more college basketball fans — especially the new ones — she predicts a compounding effect. Increased WNBA interest would put more attention on top college players, sustaining the surge past Clark and Reese, stretching it to Bueckers, JuJu Watkins and beyond. A larger, more engaged WNBA audience would want to know who’s coming next, year after year. Then maybe this Clark-fueled moment wouldn’t have to be fleeting. Maybe it could be momentum instead.

On Friday, Iowa’s semifinal win over Connecticut was the most watched basketball game in ESPN history, averaging 14.2 million viewers (and peaking at 17 million). The Indiana Fever is expected to draft Clark with the first pick April 15. She would start her WNBA career with a preseason game May 3. The Fever’s regular season opener is May 14 at Connecticut.

“People love narratives,” Parker said. “That’s why you tune in.”

Allow Sue Bird, another women’s basketball legend, to unpack that.

“What you saw today was two really special storylines play out,” Bird said after Sunday’s title game. “… You had on one side Iowa with Caitlin, who has obviously had such an impact on the game. The conversations around her — does she need to win to be a GOAT? — and just following her career and all the records she has broken. So watching this team that felt like it had some destiny connected to them — getting to the final even felt like destiny — you see that play out. On the other side, you have South Carolina trying to get a revenge season going a little bit, going undefeated, making up for last year and winning the whole thing. You had these two great storylines, and that’s what drives sports. We have them now.”

Ninety seconds left Sunday, Iowa down nine, Clark knifed inside and left a floater short. Her shoulders dipped. She peeked at the clock and shook her head. On most nights, against most teams, Clark would have made a comeback feel faintly, stupidly possible. That’s part of her legacy, too — the permission to wonder well past logic, to think so big that you make yourself laugh. She scored 18 points in the first quarter, 13 of them in two minutes of game time. She broke the record for career tournament points in four fewer games than the previous holder.

Sometimes, though, games heed to math. Possessions run out. Then you blink and four years end, leaving an existential challenge behind.

“People aren’t going to remember every single win or every single loss,” Clark said. “I think they’re just going to remember the moments that they shared at one of our games, or watching on TV, or how excited their young daughter or son got about watching women’s basketball. I think that’s pretty cool.”

Sally Jenkins contributed to this report.