Few stars are in higher demand than Caitlin Clark. That proved true Wednesday night in Evanston as a sellout crowd packed Welsh-Ryan Arena to watch Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes take on Northwestern.
Fans arrived as early as 10:30 a.m. to jostle for position as close to the court as possible to see college basketball’s biggest star. Minutes before doors opened, the line for general admission seats wrapped halfway around the building.
“It’s the Caitlin Clark effect,” said Paul Alvarez, who attended the game with his wife, Tracy Futterman-Alvarez, and their daughter, Kenzie. “There’s nothing like it. I’ve been a sports fan for 46 years. I’ve been to World Series games, NBA Finals. I’ve seen it all, and this is up there.”
The game marked the first sellout in the history of the Northwestern women’s basketball program. As the president of Wildside — the official student section for Northwestern athletics — Kayla Cohen was used to a more reserved environment at women’s games.
“The last women’s basketball game here, I was Griddying (dancing) in the student section because I was one of, like, four kids,” Cohen said. “So this is a very different environment.”
The sellout crowd of 7,039 was boosted by a large and rowdy contingent of Iowa fans who packed the arena with yellow and black — and plenty of Clark jerseys. Even Northwestern season ticket holders — the Alvarez family included — wore Clark gear.
But Cohen and the Northwestern student section embraced the challenge of balancing out the excitement brought by Clark’s presence.
“I think the No. 1 thing is making it a fair, fun match,” Cohen said before the game. “We’ve got a lot of students here ready to be loud and ready to bring the energy to the Welsh that has definitely intimidated some other opponents. Our student section can be very loud and very strong. We’ve got a ton of Iowa fans in the house tonight so we’ve got a lot of competing voices, but we’re going to be cheering for our Wildcats.”
The fans supporting the Hawkeyes represented a vibrant mix: Iowa graduates eager to represent their alma mater and young fans learning to love the game by watching Clark.
Nick Foreman helped wrangle a group of 58 girls from the North Shore Stars, a local basketball program for fourth through eighth graders. Cat Arnswald was a graduate of Dowling Catholic — where Clark attended high school in West Des Moines — and brought her 9-year-old daughter, Nora, to see her favorite player.
On the drive to the arena, Nora told Arnswald: “I just wish that Caitlin knew that I loved her more than anybody loves her.”
Betsy Zurek, 46, was another Dowling Catholic graduate who was eager to see a fellow West Des Moines native thrive in Chicago. She brought her daughter, Amelia Lochner, 8, who dressed as Clark for Halloween.
Omolola Odugbesan, 11, and her younger sister, Olukeni, were most excited to witness a piece of history: watching Clark become the No. 2 scorer in NCAA women’s basketball history.
Clark reached the milestone in the second quarter. On one basket, she broke the Big Ten all-time scoring record and surpassed Ohio State legend Kelsey Mitchell (3,402 points) to move into second on the NCAA list. Four points earlier, Clark had passed Jackie Stiles (3,393).
Clark has 3,422 points after finishing with 35 on Wednesday in the Hawkeyes’ 110-74 victory. She’s 105 points behind all-time women’s leader Kelsey Plum (3,527). Pete Maravich (3,667) holds the men’s NCAA record .
The feat was a small reflection of how Clark has influenced women’s basketball at the collegiate level.
“She gives so much besides just being a great player,” said Jess Dejesus, whose son graduated from Iowa in 2015. “Talent aside, she just has a really big heart for the game. It’s sometimes hard to explain because girls like her come very, very seldom. We’ve been basketball fans for a long time, Iowa sports fans for a long time. And there’s been some great players but no one that rises in the way that she does.”
Clark has been a galvanizing force in her senior season, selling out every arena she stepped into. She and the Hawkeyes drew 9.9 million viewers when they faced LSU in the NCAA final last season, a record for a women’s college game.
But for longtime fans of women’s basketball, it’s difficult to predict how much Clark’s success will translate to the growth of the professional game when she enters the WNBA draft — either this spring or next year.
“I thought it happened years ago with Billie Jean King and tennis,” said Emily Beswick, who waited in line for more than three hours to snag front-row seats in the general admission section. “I’d like to see it happen for basketball and for the WNBA.”
That was a common theme of conversations throughout the night for fans of Clark and women’s basketball at large — for the sport to continue to grow, Clark’s success at Iowa can only be the start.
“It has to extend far beyond Caitlin graduating from Iowa,” Arnswald said. “That’s what will actually change things.”
