Last chance to see the NCAA's unicorn? Caitlin Clark's stats put her in league of her own
Americans are tuning in and paying up in record numbers to see Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes as the NCAA scoring champion finishes her record-breaking senior year. And if you take a look at Clark's career numbers from a different vantage point, there's little wonder why.
Consider what's been called the Caitlin Clark effect:
◾ 12.3 million viewers watched Iowa defeat LSU on Monday, according to ESPN. That topped any women's college basketball game ever while also outdrawing viewership for every MLB, NHL, MLS and NBA game (except one) all last season.
◾ $718 per ticket: StubHub says fans have paid an average of $718 per ticket for the women's Final Four, which begins Friday night. That's up almost 250% from 2022 and more than average resale price for the men's Final Four.
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Women's Final Four ticket prices jump
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So is Clark really all that to watch?
If you need any other evidence that Clark has been a unique basketball talent in her four years at Iowa, a statistics professor and former Iowa alum has even more eye-opening perspective of Clark's offensive dominance.
"I've read and watched a lot of coverage on her," Dean DeCock, a professor at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri, said in an email to USA TODAY. "One thing that has bothered me is I have felt the media haven't done a good job of explaining why Clark is such a generational player."
As with almost any break down of Clark's game, DeCock's analysis (which you can read in full below) begins with Clark's career scoring.
How Caitlin Clark's points total compares to the NCAA's best scorers
Of course, a key element of any basketball player's offensive stat line is their assists, too. Clark averages nine assists a game. That means her passes lead to at least another 18 points each game for Iowa in addition to her 32 points per game this season.
So, at the same time that Clark has separated herself from the NCAA's best shooters, she ranks among the best passers as well. She's one of seven Division I women players with 1,000 or more career assists and will likely end her career in third place.
How Caitlin Clark's assists compare to the NCAA's best passers
Note: Digital records of Women's Division I basketball records aren't comprehensive prior to the 1991 season. Where possible, DeCock added standout players from previous years, which allowed him include top career scorers as far back as 1981.
What the stats say:Is Caitlin Clark or Paige Bueckers college basketball's best player?
Anyone who has watched Clark play this season can be easily impressed by her shots from several feet behind the three-point line or her long, precise passes to other Hawkeyes racing down the court for layups.
But DeCock says when you put Clark's points and assists together on a single chart, you get a much clearer picture of how unique she is – or a unicorn as he calls her in his analysis – in the history of women's NCAA basketball.
Clark stands alone among the top passers and shooters
Of the 250 top Division I women scorers, only 21 are also among the top 250 in career assists. How the other 20 compare to Clark in shooting and assists.
How Clark stands out among the game's best
DeCock goes one step further in his analysis below by putting the 50 best scorers and the 50 top assisters on the same chart. The chart further separates Clark from the best in Division I history.
Play H-O-R-S-E against Iowa's Caitlin Clark?
Are you still not convinced of Clark's shooting prowess. So how about a game of H-O-R-S-E?
Playing H-O-R-S-E is easy. You just take the hardest basketball shots that you think you can make. Winning H-O-R-S-E is a different matter. That depends on how hard everyone else's shots are.
So what if you played Clark, owner of the women's NCAA scoring record and known for her logo threes? Where would you even start? Perhaps you'd start with a record of all her shots during the past four years? We've mapped them all out here.