Caitlin Clark Found a Way to Get Even Better
What to do as an encore to a record-setting season? The Iowa star has somehow improved in the majority of her advanced statistical categories this year.
You might not think there’s much room to grow for Caitlin Clark, a player who, as a college sophomore, led the nation in scoring and assists — the first time in Division I history that had ever happened — then increased her scoring average as a junior while leading her team to the national championship game.
But, as always, Iowa’s Clark keeps finding new ways to impress — and improve on what had previously seemed like her high-water mark.
Now a senior, Clark — the presumptive No. 1 pick in next April’s WNBA draft so long as she declares — has only a few items left to achieve on a college resume that already ranks among the most decorated in basketball history. The first is the national title that eluded her Hawkeyes last season; the second is Kelsey Plum’s D1 career women’s scoring record (3,527 points), which Clark could reach by late February at her current PPG pace. And by the Big Ten tournament, she could surpass the all-time D1 basketball career points record: 3,667, set by Pete Maravich (aka “Pistol Pete”) more than 50 years ago.
With major history on the line, the 21-year-old Clark continues to evolve as a player.
According to data from Her Hoop Stats, Clark has gotten better in the majority of her advanced statistical categories this season, as compared with 2022-23. She is somehow scoring even more points while also improving her efficiency rates and reducing her turnovers. She is making even more of her signature 3-pointers, while also shooting for a higher percentage from downtown. Clark even carries a substantially improved defensive rating this year — and while that’s partly the result of Iowa rising from 48th in schedule-adjusted defensive efficiency to 13th, Clark has logged more than 80% of possible minutes for that improved defensive unit (while also increasing her steal rate). Clearly, she’s doing something right at that end of the floor, too.
Just about the only categories where Clark hasn’t gotten better as a senior are perhaps the most surprising ones, given her trademark skills.
Clark’s assist rate is slightly down, with the Hawkeyes’ offense as a whole recording its lowest rate of assists per made field goal since 2015-16. And her free throw accuracy has fallen to a career-low 79.5%, nearly 6 percentage points lower than her career FT%. She even missed four free throws in a November game against Virginia Tech — only the second time she’s done that in her career, and the first since January 2021. But lest we get too concerned about Clark’s free throw shooting, she is currently riding a streak of 11 straight makes through last Saturday’s game against Cleveland State. It seems safe to assume that Clark (a career 86% shooter through last season) will make more of her trips to the stripe as the year goes on.
And in maybe the biggest surprise of all — since we would expect it to have happened already for the defending Naismith Player of the Year — Clark is in line to finally be the most valuable statistical player in the country this season.
At least, that's according to Her Hoop Stats’ Win Shares metric, which condenses all of a player’s contributions on both offense and defense down into the number of wins she added to her team’s bottom line. Clark has never finished lower than sixth in Win Shares in any of her collegiate seasons, but she’s also never finished first: She ranked third (behind Aliyah Boston of South Carolina and NaLyssa Smith of Baylor) in 2021-22, and then third again (behind Villanova’s Maddy Siegrist and LSU’s Angel Reese) in 2022-23. This year, though, Clark has a solid lead over No. 2 Ayoka Lee of Kansas State in the early going.
Of course, that race to the top is of secondary importance next to Iowa’s national championship hopes. And there, the Hawkeyes’ improved defense and steady, Clark-powered offense has her team ranked fourth in Her Hoop Stats’ schedule-adjusted power ratings. While South Carolina still looms large over the rest of the nation, Iowa is also tied with UCLA for the third-best odds of winning the national title according to FanDuel.
That means Clark should get the chance to shine again in a deep NCAA tournament run in March — and the continued improvements she made to her game will no doubt improve Iowa’s chances of finally reaching the top.
Filed under: College basketball
Original story: Caitlin Clark Found a Way to Get Even Better