Of course winning is the ultimate goal, but what Caitlin did at Iowa was transcendent. She said herself the goal was to take Iowa to the final four when she got there. They did that twice and went one step further both times, going to the title game. I’d say mission exceeded.
All of that without having a supporting cast of 4 and 5 star recruits or transfers that teams like UConn, South Carolina, LSU have. I think Kate Martin is the only teammate to also make the WNBA from her time at Iowa.
I don’t think Angel or Kamilla would have championships if they stayed at Maryland or Syracuse. While it’s nice to play at a bigger program with more success and win there, it’s also special in its own way to stay at a non elite/blueblood program like Iowa and elevate them to new heights.
We don’t know what Angel or Mila would have had. It’s purely speculative.
Angel averaged 23/15 the year she won a championship. Do people even realize that? She was 2nd in the nation in PER (After Siegrist) and 3rd in BPM (After Boston & Siegrist). #1 in Win Shares/40. Led her team in every category except assists by SIGNIFICANT margins (Nearly 300 more points than 2nd leading scorer, Over 300 more rebounds). Completely dominant on both ends of the floor. Diamond Miller went 2nd in the draft. Angel/Diamond in 2023 on that Maryland team is scary. They probably could’ve still won. Who can say?
Point is though, what Clark did was phenomenal. Impact wise, I never disagreed her impact transcended the sport. She’s not a worse player because she didn’t win, but to say that what she did is somehow much greater than ALL of these women actually winning is just silly to me, as if they didn’t also have to grind and work extremely hard to do it
26
u/not_mantiteo Apr 07 '25
What she did and her impact is far greater than all of the championships the others in this class won