For Holy Cross in Iowa, it’s a whole new whirl

At 3 p.m. Saturday, the center of the women’s basketball universe will be Iowa. The cavernous confines of Carver-Hawkeye Arena will be filled to the brim, 15,000-plus rabid fans eagerly awaiting the first step of Caitlin Clark’s final NCAA Tournament journey. The first-round game will be televised nationally on ABC, one more piece of what has come to be known as the Caitlin Clark Effect.

An effect that has officially reached Massachusetts.

In booking their chance to face the Hawkeyes by winning a play-in game Thursday night, Holy Cross finds itself center stage in sports’s biggest show. The 16th-seeded Crusaders may be a David to the No. 1 seed Goliath in Iowa, but for the small private school from Worcester, the chance to enter the orbit of this ever-expanding universe is a gift from the basketball gods. Hard as it will be to defend the NCAA’s all-time leading scorer, tough as it will be to topple a top-ranked team on its home court, this is a joyride through a story that continues to captivate the nation.

The Caitlin Clark Effect. For Holy Cross, it’s everywhere, everything all at once. A once-in-aprogram opportunity for exposure and experience.

It’s Holy Cross coach Maureen Magarity getting to shake Clark’s hand in the hallway of the arena and calling it a “fan girl” moment.

It’s senior guard Cara McCormack doing her best Clark impression in Thursday night’s blowout win over Tennessee Martin, lifting her diminutive 5foot-3-inch frame to a careerbest seven 3-pointers.

It’s Maureen’s father Dave Magarity, the longtime, now-retired coach of Army women’s basketball, running into Clark and her boyfriend, Iowa men’s player Connor McCaffery, in the training room. Him saying hello to McCaffery, son of his child