After brutal first half, Clark carries Iowa to Big Ten tourney three-peat
MINNEAPOLIS — Caitlin Clark raised her arms in anger.
She had missed her first nine 3-pointers. She scored a season-low four first-half points. She committed seven turnovers. She missed a key free throw in overtime.
She repeatedly threw her hands in the air, shifting blame from the rim to the refs to the basketball gods. She punched a chair, then slammed another. She screamed at herself, then, at no one in particular. She played what she considered “probably my worst half ” ever.
After the final buzzer sounded, she raised her arms one more time, showering in black-and-gold confetti falling from above.
Leading second-seeded Iowa back from an eight-point deficit in the final 2:10 of regulation, Clark recovered to finish with 34 points, 12 assists, seven rebounds, three steals and a series of clutch moments, as the Hawkeyes claimed a third straight Big Ten Tournament title with a 94-89 overtime win over fifth-seeded Nebraska at the soldout Target Center.
“You can maybe keep Caitlin down for a half,” Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said. “You’re not keeping her down the whole game. There’s no way.”
With the three-peat, Iowa (29-4) almost certainly secured a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1992.
Clark became the second player in league history to be named Most Outstanding Player of the Big Ten Tournament three times. In the 18 years prior to her arrival, the Hawkeyes won one Big Ten Tournament.
“It definitely felt like the March tension in the air,” Clark said. “If we want to reach our goals in March, we are going to have to find ways to win that aren’t always pretty. You’ve got to be resilient and gritty. … We have been through it. We’re ready for it. I’m just proud of our group. We weathered every storm we had. We kept fighting.”
Playing her third game in less than 48 hours, Clark showed no fatigue, but unrelenting frustration, missing her first six shots. Clark’s unsung supporting cast — namely, Hannah Stuelke (25 points, nine rebounds) — kept it close until the ice thawed from Division I’s alltime leading scorer.
With Iowa facing its largest halftime deficit of the season, 46-35, Clark hit her first two shots of the second half, including her first 3-pointer. She scored 12 third-quarter points, giving the Hawkeyes their first lead since the opening minutes.
“Honestly, I don’t think we win those if you have freshman and sophomore Caitlin [playing],” said Clark, who shot 12-for-29, making 5 of 17 3-pointers. “I was never able to let it go and move on to the next. That was really something I always struggled with and something I knew I had to get better at for this team to be where we wanted to be.”
Iowa’s de facto home crowd fell silent in the final minutes, when Nebraska (22-11) went in front 75-67.
Clark awoke tens of thousands with a stepback 3-pointer.
Her drive-and-dish on Kate Martin’s corner 3 cut the lead to two with 1:02 to play. Clark then tied the game on a drive with 29.3 seconds left.
After Nebraska’s buzzer-beating attempt missed by miles, Clark stomped down the court and screamed to the crowd: “Come on! Five f--king minutes.” A back-and-forth extra session saw Nebraska holding a one-point lead and Clark holding the ball. Again, the All-American stepped behind the arc, drilling a 3-pointer with 51.3 seconds remaining.
On the next possession, Clark intercepted a pass, then sank two free throws. On the final possession, No. 22 stole another pass, dribbled out the clock and hurled the ball into the stands.
She ran to midcourt and hugged her teammates. Confetti fell. Taylor Swift’s “I’m feeling 22” blared. Clark captured the moment on her phone.
She climbed the ladder and cut the first stand of net, her head above the rim, her arm in the air.