A league of their own: Caitlin Clark and Dawn Staley have changed the face of women's college basketball
Sunday afternoon’s NCAA women’s championship between Iowa and South Carolina will be appointment television, the rare “where were you when” moment in sport that signifies sea change.
At the center of the championship drama are Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark and South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley, two genre-bending, stereotype defying, culture-shaping women who have kept eyes glued to televisions during the Women’s NCAA Tournament and changed the landscape of a sport in the process.
Clark, the Iowa guard with the Midwestern, girl next door shooting hoops in the cornfield vibes, will play her final game for the Hawkeyes in the national championship game, looking for a storybook ending to a record-shattering career before entering the WNBA Draft. Iowa is a 6.5-point underdog, via DraftKings Sportsbook.
Clark is a magician with the ball, a born scorer with astounding range who can create a shot off the dribble or shoot off the catch with only inches of space. Clark is far from just a scorer, as her flare and ability to thread a needle-tight pass that seems to bend time and space or to command help off the ball as a cutter have made the Hawkeyes nearly impossible to guard, as UConn found out in losing a 12-point lead in Friday night’s national semifinal. Clark scored 21 points, giving her 3,921 for her career. Last month, she became the NCAA’s all-time leading scorer in Division I, men or women’s, and her game has drawn comparisons to Pistol Pete Maravich, the LSU star whose scoring record she broke, earning her the nickname “Ponytail Pete,” a moniker that made Clark grin ear to ear when it was brought to her attention last month.
“I saw somebody call me that,” Clark told assembled media after Iowa’s senior day. “It was incredibly cool.”
Clark has spent 2 seasons now selling out arenas, dazzling crowds with her scoring ability and preternatural ability to create for her teammates. Tickets to Iowa games this season cost nearly 200% of their face value, on average, according to Vivid Seats, a ticket exchange and resale company. Fans, often traveling hundreds of miles, arrived at Iowa home and road games hours in advance, boosting local economies in the process.
Away from the arenas and college campuses, Clark’s impact on the sport is all the more pronounced. Over 10 million people watched Clark and Iowa play Angel Reese and LSU in last season’s national championship game, and more than 12 million tuned in to this season’s Elite 8 rematch. At the time of this writing, numbers for Friday night’s Final Four contest between blue-blood UConn and Iowa were not available, but the numbers for Sunday’s championship game between Iowa and South Carolina are projected to exceed 15 million people, shattering last year’s title game record.
If you want a better idea of Clark’s impact, I’d encourage you to watch Sunday’s title game away from home. This author took in Iowa’s Elite 8 rematch with LSU at a local restaurant in Charlotte, North Carolina. Over half the restaurant televisions were fixed on Clark and Iowa’s duel with LSU, and people were jumping out of their seats and yelling at televisions, with the noise swelling to a dull roar whenever Clark possessed the basketball.
Clark’s ability and electrifying talent have changed everything about women’s basketball, from the way it is being played, to its economics, to the cross-cultural appeal of the sport and who tunes in on television.
In the championship on Sunday, Clark will face an unbeaten South Carolina squad led by its own culture shaping phenomenon, Dawn Staley.
“Imagine if Nick Saban or Kirby Smart weren’t just passionate, fiery championship winning coaches, but also gold medal former winning players — and then imagine they looked like most of their players,” gold medalist, WNBA MVP and former Tennessee star Candace Parker told NBC Sports in 2022, after Staley won her second national championship at South Carolina.
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Staley grew up in tough socioeconomic conditions in Philadelphia, but with a family that emphasized faith, discipline, and hard work, Staley earned a basketball scholarship to the University of Virginia, where she was named National Player of the Year twice. A visionary passer, Staley, like Clark, wowed crowds with her range of offensive moves and skills, and she won 3 gold medals and was named a WNBA All-Star 6 times in a long playing career.
Staley has her own pizazz and personality, from her in-game clothing ensembles to pregame dances to her proud proclamations of faith. Staley has created her own lane as a rare black woman in coaching, staying true to herself while becoming one of just 7 coaches to win multiple national titles in women’s college basketball, and becoming the only coach to defeat legendary coaches Geno Auriemma, Tara VanDerveer, and Kim Mulkey in the same season.
Since the 2011-12 season, Staley has led South Carolina to 8 SEC Tournament championships, 12 straight NCAA Tournament appearances, 6 Final Fours and of course, 2 national championships. South Carolina averaged fewer than 3,000 fans per game at home before 2011. By 2015, South Carolina led the nation in attendance, displacing blueblood programs Tennessee and UConn in that metric.
Like Clark, Staley has also changed the way the game is played as a coach.
“The way they use speed, not just in transition but in half-court offense with players and they way they screen, or cut off the ball, or come downhill after dribble handoffs, it’s a different type of game they are playing,” former All-SEC Florida star Jennifer George told SDS this week. “They have always guarded you with their physicality and their depth. But Dawn went out and figured out how to score differently than anyone else.”
The result is an offense that has scored 100 points 6 times this season, and leads the nation in transition points per game (19.8) and offensive rating (119 per 100 possessions), per Hoops Lens. Combine that with a defense that ranks in the top 5 in national efficiency for the 4th time in 6 seasons, and you understand why the Gamecocks haven’t lost in 2023-24.
Sunday’s title game will feature the sport’s two best offenses, and two biggest stars, and both Clark and Staley are motivated by insatiable hunger to win. Staley and South Carolina also will be motivated by what happened last year, when Clark scored 41 against the Gamecocks in a Final Four victory that sent Iowa to the title game and ended South Carolina’s perfect season. Those Gamecocks were 36-0 entering that game. These Gamecocks are 37-0.
Clark works referees, fires up the crowd after makes, yells, and by her own admission, talks her fair share of trash.
Staley dances when she wins, cries when she loses, and constantly demands excellence, calling out her players just as easily as she calls out those she believes unjustly criticize them, as she did a month ago when she defended Gamecocks star Kamilla Cardoso from insensitive remarks made by a radio host, who later apologized.
Clark is motivated by her lone unmet goal in college hoops — to deliver Iowa a national championship.
A season ago, Clark was bottled up and frustrated throughout the national title game, which the Hawkeyes lost to LSU. Sunday, she’ll get a chance, but for the second season in a row, she’ll have to eliminate a team coached by Dawn Staley from the Final Four.
Staley is also fueled by last season’s Final Four loss, which Staley admitted to the media this week “rocked” her.
“We had a team full of players who did everything the way you want young women to do things,” Staley said of last season’s defeat in the Final Four. “If you met that team, you’d want them to win, and we didn’t. We ask God why, but I can tell you today I am stand here as our why.”
On Sunday, it all comes together with two culture shifting, immovable objects colliding on the same floor. One will emerge as national champion, but both have changed the sport forever.
While Staley is an excellent coach, Clark is driving the ratings. The numbers without Clark in this game wouldn’t be half of what Clark brings. The article should reflect that fact. There’s a reason why the author only mentions SC game attendance records and not tv numbers, which is the greater point of who is influential and to what degree.
Oskie, I don’t think you understand what facts are, considering what you typed is an opinion. A fact is that Staley is the most accomplished coach in college athletics today, that’s a fact, accolades don’t lie.
You can compare tv ratings for games with Staley’s teams being the top team and no Caitlin Clark and the numbers (even in championship games) don’t eclipse some of the regular season Caitlin Clark games (like when she broke the scoring record). Those are objectively verifiable facts and not opinions. Clearly you don’t know the difference but every argument you make on here is a strawman derived from your ignorance and lack of educations, so that’s unsurprising.
“The numbers without Clark in this game wouldn’t be half of what Clark brings.” – prove that with the numbers, or it’s just your opinion. In the land of dipsh*ts, you are the supreme dipsh*t. Congrats! Also I notice you can’t deny that what I said about Staley being the best current coach in college athletics is a fact speaks volumes on what a fact is!
Btw no straw man provided, please enlighten us with the “receipts” to back up your false claim. I’ll wait…
1. I said she’s an excellent coach-try reading and again-making a strawman argument.
2. Geno has more titles (11) than Staley (3) and is the best active coach by record (.882) to Staley’s (.806 at USCjr and .767 overall). Those receipts work?
3. Per Nielsen, Staley drew 4.9M viewers in her 2022 championship game and 3.8M in 2019. Clark drew 10M in 2023 and 18.9M this year. Even without Staley in 2023, she drew over double the viewership. So yes, when I said Staley wouldn’t get half the viewership without Clark, it wasn’t hyperbole but facts per Nielsen, the preeminent ratings authority. Those receipts work? It gets better, her elite eight game vs LSWho drew 12.3M per AP news. That’s more viewership than Staley got in 2022 and 2019 COMBINED.
1. She’s more than excellent, she the undefeated champ.
2. See number 1, she is the greatest today.
3. Again study your fallacies before you speak. Your receipts are what I thought they would be which are a Base Rate fallacy. Your numbers are selective and doesn’t take in all the variables. The only true base line you have is last years championship vs this years. The only consistent variable in those two games is Clark but the numbers are 9.9 million vs LSU and 18.9 million vs SC which actually using predictive theory, again not a fact, SC vs Clark brought 9 million more viewers than Clark vs LSU. Your other numbers are cute but are the result of more variables than just one player. NCAA women’s basketball has been on an incline before Clark got to Iowa so again your theory is highly flawed, but cute try, poot.
Ahahahaha-now you got stomped with facts and you resort to ignoring data.
1. I didn’t deny she had a great undefeated season. I simply said she was excellent. Your argument here is really not enough genuflection for a feat other coaches have accomplished? UConn (Geno) has done this six times while UT/Baylor/Texas/USCjr have done it once.
2. The stats speak for themselves. Geno has a better record in titles, finals fours, and undefeated seasons. You’re literally ignoring facts like you’ve accused me of and simply arguing in bad faith. Your argument is literally that Kirby is a better coach than Saban because he won the more recent title. No one on even this site is stupid enough to make that argument but you.
3. It’s not base rate fallacy when I’m using multiple sample sizes from championship games and even one elite eight when we’re discussing, championship games and who brings more viewers. What variables are missing? You’re again making strawman arguments and now simply ignoring data. Show me missing variables, where Nielsen lied, or games where Staley beat Clark’s ratings in the tournament, I’ll wait because you can’t. I get a kick at how my facts and logic demolish you and you have zero logical response but have to resort to lying or making arguments like you do with Geno-that greater numbers or titles don’t matter. This has happened several times before with you-you resort to arguing in bad faith and lying because you have no facts or logic
Your numbers are flawed perhaps get an educated person to simplify it for you, I’ve tried you just don’t get it.
1. She is perfect, the numbers are solid on that. No other coach is 38-0 right now, period.
2. You are actually using a Strawman by bringing historical data in an argument about who is best right now. my statement stand she is the best Right Now, was Geno, your strawman, 38-0 or was Staley this season?
3. It’s absolutely base rate fallacy when using select sample sizes when presenting an argument of who brings more viewers. I already picked apart your flawed logic once but let’s do this again. The only clear arguments you are comparing are select Clark and SC games. You ignore the common variable that Women’s basketball has been on the rise before Clark was in college which destroys your argument before it starts but I’ll continue. Nielsen doesn’t lie but you conveniently left variables out such has dates and times and competition for viewership. Prime example is the two final four games, you neglect to account for the start times, the lead ins and you ignore the historical data. It’s a nonsensical argument anyway because your argument is an opinion not based on facts, but is based on a sole flawed theory, again cute try. Also please provide where I lied or provided false data, I’ll wait.
We’re talking championship game viewership and I’ve included 100% of the instances where either USCjr or Clark played. Thats the full range of numerical evidence for championship games involving both and not a sample size extrapolated-learn basic stats. My argument was the “championship game with Staley but without Clark” and not greater viewership. Thus the stats to refute (which you’ve provided no numbers, only me), would need to involve championship games. I provided each number for Clark and Staley, not a sampling. You’ve provided nothing but moved the goalposts to make the argument about women’s basketball viewership as a whole. Still yet, with Caitlin Clark, viewership has exceeded records and the men’s game and that’s never happened with only Staley. Before Clark-all championship games drew 2-5m in the twenty year period leading up to 2022. Clark doubled 2022’s viewership in 2023. Thus, the variable isn’t start times or lead ins or anything but her being the all time points womens leader (which you’ll probably say isn’t true). You have provided ZERO datapoints that I can even refute. Zero. I’m done arguing your bad faith bs bc it’s your job to prove the variables you list made the jump in context of the championship games and you can’t provide numbers like I did. Also-you pivoted from saying Staley was as much a reason as Clark to “oh it’s just women’s basketball interest has increased”. Again the burden of proof is on you bc I’ve provided objective numbers and you haven’t.
I see you’re dodging to point about Nick Saban being better than Kirby because Kirby was “perfect” more recently but Saban was perfect more times and had more titles-that’s the metrics that count and nobody would take Kirby over Saban if given the choice. Staley will be lucky to get as many rings as Pat Summitt, let alone Geno.
Bro you are struggling, and I’m using your selective data points against you so now you are trying to change your argument. Here is your original quote “The numbers without Clark in this game wouldn’t be half of what Clark brings.” You’ve yet to prove this statement, it actually proves that she needed SC to get 18.9 million from the previous years 9.9 vs LSU. Side argument you are trying to stretch out on is wrong again, Is Saban the best coach right now, is Geno or is Smart and Staley, you are arguing historically which I am not denying, you are reaching hard. Also you claim the rise in the ratings has to do with Clark, what else is the most important variable you are missing in the last three women’s championship games? Hint it actually has more historical reference then your cherry picked theories on why the impressive numbers, look at the broadcasts themselves.
Dawn recruiting trans men now? Sad for the women.
How can anyone in the SEC pull for her and her team after she made those comments? Girls growing up striving to make it to next level will lose opportunities thanks to biological men. She’s off her rocker.
I don’t think she was a lot of people’s favorite before this happened, and this surely will not help her perception. I wonder what her players think about this. It would have to make the locker room a bit less comfortable. That being said, she’s done a heck of a job.
I don’t have to agree with her position to appreciate her as a heckuva basketball coach. It is such a hot button issue but only comprises an infinitesimal part of college sports (34 trans participants out of 500,000 total participants–and some are trans men). There are zero trans athletes participating in team sports for Power 5 schools unless you consider Vandy’s bowling team (insert joke here). I take more issue with the reporter asking the question right before the National Championship game. Staley is going to get hit by one side or the other based upon her answer while Lisa Bluder just deflected the question entirely.
If she was not so WOKE the right answer would come to her.
I’m not sure why her views even matter. She is not the one who decides whether they play or not. Maybe you should focus your grievances on the NCAA or invest in more crying towels.
Just because sportswriters haven’t paid enough attention to women’s basketball doesn’t mean nobody else has. I can show you some footage of a junior college superstar at Louisburg, NC where an amazing guard not only dominated the court but also saved the lives of three children drowning in the Tar River. Life is big. Lots of people do big things. But thanks for doing a little more of the media job of noticing it all
Clark is the GOAT, and clearly driving the interest and ratings of this tournament. Staley is fortunate to be along for the ride.
Staley has dominated fans in the seats long before Caitlin Clark came around. SC women’s basketball has led the nation in average and total attendance for several years.