By: Emma Xing

More women are participating in basketball in the past few years. This increasing popularity is mostly because of Caitlin Clark. Caitlin Clark is a 22–year–old point guard for the Iowa Hawkeyes. She brought more attention to basketball because she has broken many records for women’s basketball Division 1.

The NCAA claimed that the “Caitlin Clark Effect” helped raise the total number of attendance to 8,784,401 for Division 1 women’s basketball during the 2022–2023 season. This number exceeded the previous number by 150,000.

Additionally, the NCAA Championship game between Louisiana State and Iowa attracted 10 million viewers, which was twice the amount of people that attended the 2022 Championships.

The 2023-2024 season has been particularly riveting for Clark’s fans. On February 15th, 2024, she scored her 3,528th point of her career in a game against Michigan, which is a new record for the most points in NCAA history. The previous record was set by Kelsey Plum, who played for the University of Washington.

Two weeks later, Caitlin Clark surpassed the all-time women’s record of 3,649 points, which was set by Lynette Woodard in 1981, just before the NCAA era began.

But there’s more! On March 3rd, 2024, Clark even surpassed Pete Maravich’s record of 3,667 career points in Division 1 history for men and women. Maravic has held the title since 1970.

“Just to be in the same realm of all these players who have been so successful, whether it’s Pete or Kelsey Plum or Lynette Woodard — all these people have just given so much to the game,” Clark said. “Hopefully, somebody comes after me and breaks my records, and I can be there supporting them.”

Although this is the last year for Clark for college basketball, she has decided to join WNBA and is expected to be the top pick. But before she moves on, she has one goal: to help the Iowa Hawkeyes women’s team win their first-ever NCAA championship!