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Iowa basketball star Caitlin Clark introduced on Thursday that she’s declaring for the WNBA draft.
She made her announcement with one sport remaining on the regular-season schedule and weeks after breaking the NCAA girls’s scoring report.
“Whereas this season is much from over and we’ve much more targets to attain, it will likely be my final one at Iowa,” Clark wrote on social media. “I’m excited to be getting into the 2024 WNBA Draft.”
The Indiana Fever maintain the No. 1 choose in April’s draft for a second consecutive season. Clark will presumably be a part of 2023 No. 1 choose and Rookie of the 12 months Aliyah Boston to anchor a promising younger core in Indiana.
Clark will go away after her fourth NCAA season with one yr of eligibility remaining. Gamers who had been energetic throughout the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season had been granted an additional season of eligibility by the NCAA. She’ll forgo that additional season to show professional at 22 years outdated. Within the meantime, she’ll hope to guide Iowa to an NCAA championship, the one gap remaining on her illustrious school résumé.
Clark won consensus National Player of the Year Honors as a junior in 2023 whereas main the Hawkeyes to the nationwide championship sport. There, LSU defeated Iowa to disclaim the Hawkeyes a title.
Clark is the favourite to brush nationwide particular person honors once more in 2024 amid a historic season that noticed her pass Kelsey Plum as the NCAA’s all-time scoring leader. She broke Plum’s 3,527-point threshold with a career-high 49-point efficiency in a Feb. 16 win over Michigan.
As of Thursday, Clark was averaging a career-high 32.2 factors and eight.7 assists alongside 7.4 rebounds and 1.7 steals per sport whereas capturing 46.9% from the sector and 39.5% on 13.6 3-point makes an attempt per sport. She’s now 18 points from passing Pete Maravich, who owns the NCAA scoring report for males or girls with 3,667 factors in three seasons at LSU.
Clark’s on tempo to go that mark in Sunday’s regular-season finale in opposition to Ohio State. Her sixth-ranked Hawkeyes will host the No. 2 Buckeyes on Sunday in a sport that can have important implications for NCAA match seeding.
