Iowa Hawkeyes basketball star, Caitlin Clark
The Nebraska Cornhuskers defeated record-chasing Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes 82-79 on Super Bowl Sunday, holding the star to 31 points, just eight shy of the points-scoring record. The Pinnacle Bank Arena was sold out, with fans anticipating the coronation of a new women’s college basketball scoring queen.
The Hawkeyes led by 14 points in the fourth quarter but the Cornhuskers outscored them 27-10 to seal the comeback and spoil record-chasing Clark’s big coronation day.
After hitting the go-ahead 3-pointer, Nebraska’s Jaz Shelley mimicked John Cena’s famous ‘you can’t see me’ gesture, which Clark typically uses to celebrate.
With Clark being a popular name in college basketball, the gesture had a mixed reception among fans, forcing Shelley to tweet her explanation of the incident on X.
“Just to clear the air,” she tweeted. “This was not a gesture at Caitlin or Iowa. I have the upmost respect for that program. This is how we signal our face guard defense”
College basketball fans on X reacted differently to the gesture by Shelley, with one fan tweeting:
“I mean if you talk crap you need to be able to take it too. #nobigdeal.”
Caitlin Clark participates in Iowa’s worst quarter in 8 years
It was the worst fourth-quarter margin for the Hawkeyes since the quarter system was adopted in 2015–2016.
The $818,000 NIL-valued Clark could not score in the whole fourth quarter for the first time in her career, going 0-6 to match her team’s woeful collapse, where they were outscored 27-10.
During her postgame news conference, she summarized the fourth quarter accurately.
“We just didn’t execute down the stretch,” Clark said, “and that stinks.”
Caitlin Clark shrugged off the freakish fourth quarter against the Cornhuskers with her comments afterward.
“Knowing our goals are still intact, there’s no reason to freak out,” Clark said. “There’s no reason to get down on yourselves. We can we still control our destiny; that’s all that matters. Maybe it’s a good reset for our team to be able to look in the mirror and find ways to get better.”
Despite a bad day in the office, Caitlin Clark broke another record. After the game on Sunday, she became the first Division I women’s player to have 3,000+ points and 1,000+ assists after registering 10 assists.
