CLEVELAND — Iowa's Caitlin Clark and UConn's Paige Bueckers both emphasized that Friday's national semifinal showdown between the Hawkeyes and Huskies (9 p.m. ET, ESPN) was all about their teams, not them.
UConn's Geno Auriemma, coaching in the women's Final Four for the 23rd time, sees the individual superstar duel from a more historical perspective. He remembers the men's national championship game between Magic Johnson (Michigan State) and Larry Bird (Indiana State) in 1979, which propelled not only March Madness but also the NBA.
“[With] Magic and Bird, TV suddenly paid more attention,” Auriemma said during Thursday’s media sessions at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse. “Those two special players came in and that just lit everything up and it just took off from there.”
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“So [the game] needs a few stars. It takes people with the right personality, the right game. And that’s what we have now.”
That's true with two guards to keep an eye on. Clark leads the nation in scoring (32.0 PPG) and assists (9.0 APG); She has scored more points (3,900) in her Iowa career than any other male or female player in Division I history. She scored Monday in a win over LSU in an Elite Eight game that drew a record television audience of more than 12 attracted millions of viewers, a performance of 41 points and 12 assists.
Bueckers was the national player of the year as a freshman in 2021 and has made it to the Final Four in each of the three seasons she was healthy. Bueckers missed 2022-23 with a knee injury, and UConn missed the Final Four for the first time since 2007. Bueckers had 28 points and 10 rebounds in UConn's regional final win over USC; She averages 22.0 points and 3.9 assists.
Clark said Thursday that she reached out to Bueckers before this season to wish her luck in her return from the injury. The two have known each other since they were young on the AAU circuit, Clark growing up in Iowa and Bueckers in Minnesota. They have also played with USA Basketball junior teams.
“She knows how to play, has a great IQ,” Bueckers said of Clark. “I think the greatest thing about her is that she competes and is just a winner.”
Bueckers was the highest-rated recruit in the 2020 class, while Clark was ranked No. 4 behind Angel Reese and Cameron Brink.
Clark, Reese and Brink could have returned for a fifth year next season due to the COVID-19 exemption from 2020-21, their first year. Instead, everyone declared for the WNBA draft on April 15th.
Bueckers also could have gone to the draft, but she announced in February that she would return to UConn for the 2024-25 season.
While this weekend won't be college graduation for Bueckers, it will be for Clark. In the 2021 NCAA Tournament, played in a “bubble” in San Antonio, UConn defeated Iowa 92-72 in the Sweet 16. Clark had 21 points and 5 assists in that game, while Bueckers nearly had a triple-double with 18 points, 9 rebounds, 8 assists. UConn lost to Arizona in the national semifinals.
The next season, Iowa fell to Creighton in the second round, while UConn reached the NCAA finals, losing to South Carolina. Bückers injured his knee in the summer of 2022 and had to sit out the 2022/23 season. Clark, meanwhile, led Iowa to the program's second Final Four; the first took place in 1993.
Clark said it was cool to see how her and Bueckers' careers have developed, but added: “[Friday’s game is] not Paige vs Caitlin. It takes the entire team to win a basketball game. We'll both do everything we can.
“The coolest thing about Paige is how resilient she is. She was kind of given a hard hand.” [with injuries] and only has positive things to say about her teammates. And the way she behaves on and off the field and the way she works hard, nothing has changed. I've known her since she was in middle school; She always worked the same way, always had the fire and was a leader.”
Auriemma, who has coached several All-Americans and Hall of Famers, recognizes that the matchup between Clark and Bueckers has a resonance that will benefit the entire sport. He said the two players helped attract an audience beyond just fans of their own teams.
“There wasn't a national awareness of, 'Hey, we need to look at this.' … It’s gone beyond that now thanks to what some of these kids have done,” Auriemma said of fans’ different viewing habits. “They have built a fan base for women’s basketball that will watch a great women’s game, whether or not they have a deep interest in the game.”
“There were a lot of great NBA players before Magic and Larry Bird, so why didn’t that happen? People didn't make it happen. So these two guys, because they did it in college and people saw them play a lot, you wanted to follow them after they left. [Past great women’s players], they didn't have the following. They didn't have the hysteria that these kids did.
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