Caitlin Clark endured an unfortunate career first in Iowa’s loss at Nebraska.
It seems as though every time Caitlin Clark steps on the court, she does something special. She has a new first, finding some new way to outdo her lofty standards.
On Sunday, she had the opportunity for a new first, to become first on the all-time scoring leaders chart for collegiate women’s basketball. With eight points left to go heading into the fourth quarter, it looked bound to happen.
Instead, Clark experienced a much different first in the loss against Nebraska. She was unable to reach the scoring record, instead being held scoreless in the final frame of play.
Scoreless and Caitlin Clark are not two words that go together too often. However, such was the case in the Hawkeyes’ 82-79 upset loss at the hands of Nebraska. For the first time in her career, she played the entire fourth quarter and didn’t record a single point.
Now, it is a striking stat for Clark, and really helps paint the picture of where everything went wrong for Lisa Bluder’s squad in Lincoln. Up 14, they thought they had the game in hand. They took their foot off the gas, further impacted by the different defensive looks thrown at them by their opponent. That switch-up by the defense certainly deserves credit.
Clark went 0-for-6 in the fourth frame. She didn’t shoot until 7:05 left in the game, once Nebraska cut the deficit down from 69-55 to 71-61. Four of Clark’s six shots came in the last four minutes of the game, three in the last minute and a half when she was forced to throw up shots as the team was in a full-on free-fall.
Now, the stats aren’t pretty for Clark in that final quarter despite having a really good game to that point. While some of the blame does go on her—and yes, she would absolutely never absolve herself of blame just because of how good she is, that’s not the type of competitor she is—there is definitely some context as to those stats.
The offense pretty much worked around Clark for the beginning half of the quarter—at least as much as you can with Clark on the court—and yet she was still out there for the entirety of the fourth. Why not just sit her then and give her some rest? She ended up playing 39 minutes, pretty much the entire game. She was clearly tired at the end.
During that final quarter, Iowa as a team only made four of 17 shots. They also turned it over four times. At the end of the day, no one was good enough to bring home a needed victory against Nebraska. The loss will serve as a great lesson with the postseason right around the corner.
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