IOWA CITY — This thing here Sunday almost felt too big, too loud, maybe even too much.
This was a college basketball player, after all. A young woman who plays a game, and yet the fervor for her has been like nothing we’ve ever seen at the University of Iowa and really, in college athletics. It only was ramped up here before this highly-awaited noon ballgame.
The ESPN pregame show, the rapper and Hall of Fame baseball player and commercial character pitchman for insurance who found their ways to Iowa for this moment. The flood of photographers and camera operators crammed behind both baselines, yet another nationally televised game with Fox’s Gus Johnson pumping up the volume even more, prices on ticket markets that could dent the national debt.
It all was too big. Too loud. Except it wasn’t. Not for Caitlin Clark, and not for her Hawkeye teammates. They once again did what they do, which is play their beautifully frenetic game amid all the sound and fury they’re responsible for creating, and play it successfully.
No. 6 Iowa beat No. 2 Ohio State 93-83 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. Calling it a foregone conclusion would be an insult to a Buckeyes team that has so much talent and desire, possibly the nation’s top threat to deny South Carolina the national title.
OK, but this was the closest thing to a foregone conclusion. Did anyone really believe Clark and Kate Martin and Gabbie Marshall would let victory elude them on their Senior Day? Did anyone doubt Clark would do another 40 minutes of Clark things?
Did anyone really envision the result causing the postgame ceremony for the departing seniors to have fresh bitter mixed in with all the sweet?
It was a tense, physical, sometimes-angry game. The two head coaches got hot and bothered repeatedly. Two Buckeye players got technical fouls.
Iowa had a 12-point lead at Ohio State vanish in January. The Hawkeyes were ahead 25-10 in the first quarter Sunday, and began the second half up 48-39. Then the Buckeyes scored the first seven points after halftime.
You’ll never guess what happened next if you don’t already know.
Clark made a step-back 3-pointer.
OK, so you probably would have guessed it.
“That got us back on track,” Iowa Coach Lisa Bluder said afterward.
Then, Marshall sank the third of her four 3-pointers and the train pulled away for good.
The postgame speeches given by the team’s five seniors to the fans were succinct and sweet, but it was a long goodbye. The players remained on the court long afterward to spend time with family and friends. Clark, with her security detail doing yeoman’s work, made a throng of kids beam on her slow exit out of the main arena as she signed their shirts, shoes and towels.
Finally, there was a press conference before she could come up for air on a day almost anyone else would have found suffocating with all the attention from every direction. As always, she had the right words.
“I think the biggest part of my maturity and growth is I have been able to handle that and balance that and handle everything that’s going on around me and the noise around me,” Clark said.
“Obviously, it can be hard at times, but I would never change that for the world.”
This day wasn’t just Caitlin Clark Day. Sophomore forward Hannah Stuelke got the better of the Buckeyes’ bigs this time around, scoring 23 points. Martin had 11 second-half points and led Iowa’s distinct rebounding advantage. Kylie Feuerbach came off the bench to steal the ball three times in a 77-second span.
And, Iowa scored 93 points against a great team that had been allowing just 62 per game.
“People that are showing up and coming to our games,” Clark said, “they really love the way our team plays. They’re cheering for everyone. When Gabbie makes a 3, when Kate makes a 3, you can just feel the energy and the joy and the excitement that our team plays with, and that’s contagious.
“Our fans give us that energy, but we give it right back to them.”
The season-defining portion of the women’s college basketball season starts now for Iowa with the Big Ten and NCAA tourneys, but the definition of the Hawkeyes was Sunday. The moment was big and loud and too much, except of course, it wasn’t.
Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com
