Beyond the GOAT Debate: Caitlin Clark’s Unmatched Influence on Women’s College Basketball

After an incredible collegiate basketball career, Caitlin Clark’s resume is still noticeably lacking from one important item. In the national championship game on Sunday, South Carolina emerged victorious, becoming the first unbeaten national champion since 2016. Clark and her Iowa Hawkeyes were vanquished.

Even after leaving college basketball, Clark still holds a number of records, the most notable of which being her 3,951 career points, which broke the all-time NCAA Division I scoring record for both men’s and women’s basketball. She also had a significant impact on the sport, as her extraordinary scoring ability attracted record crowds and television viewers while leading Iowa to Big Ten regular-season and tournament championships as well as a trip to the national title game in 2023–2024.

Following the on-court trophy ceremony on Sunday, head coach Dawn Staley of the Gamecocks expressed her gratitude to Clark for “lifting up our sport.”

“She carried a heavy load for our sport, and it’s not gonna stop on the collegiate tour,” Staley said. “When she is the No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft, she’s gonna lift that league up as well. So Caitlin Clark, if you’re out there, you are one of the GOATs of our game, and we appreciate you.”

Although Clark is anticipated to be the first pick by the Indiana Fever in the WNBA Draft, it is his total influence that has “Undisputed”‘s Rachel Nichols prepared to declare Clark the most significant player in women’s collegiate basketball history rather than the “G.O.A.T.”

“Even if she had won [a title], I wouldn’t necessarily said that she was the greatest of all time,” Nichols said Monday. “Breanna Stewart is a four-time [NCAA] champ, three-time Player of the Year. Candace Parker — two-time champ, two-time Player of the year. Diana Taurasi, three-time national champion. I would still put Cheryl Miller up against anyone. Reggie Miller will tell you, as a Hall of Famer, he is not the best basketball player in his own family.”

In agreement, Skip Bayless noted that there would not have been as much debate if Iowa had not had some fortunate breaks in earlier rounds of the NCAA tournament, such as LSU star Angel Reese recovering from an ankle injury in the Elite Eight and a contentious offensive foul call against UConn in the final seconds of Iowa’s two-point victory over them in the Final Four. Additionally, he thinks Iowa’s cast of characters surrounding Clark was ultimately insufficient to compete with the nation’s greatest squad.

“I thought [the rest of Iowa’s roster] was very average to below average,” Bayless said. “And I think we saw that yesterday because the rest of the team got exposed by a really good, 10-deep South Carolina team. … I just didn’t think there was any hope unless she went completely 3-point crazy, like she is capable of doing. If she had beaten South Carolina sort of single-handedly yesterday, then I’m sitting back saying, ‘I got to rethink this [G.O.A.T. debate] a little bit.’

“So what did she do? What were her biggest accomplishments on the floor? She was the greatest distance shooter we’ve ever seen. So she was the female Steph Curry in revolutionizing the way women play basketball, because we’ve never seen that before.”

Nonetheless, Nichols thinks Clark has an impact on players’ self-advocacy off the court in addition to their performance on it.

“[Clark] is not the greatest player of all time in women’s college basketball to me, she is the most influential player of all time in women’s college basketball to me. … She’s one of the greats of the game. The influence she has had on women’s college basketball and women’s sports is going to be felt for a very long time. Those TV numbers, the interest of the country, is something that women’s college players are going to be able to talk about and present as, ‘Hey, we’re just as good. We deserve just as much.'”

While Nichols concurs with Staley that Clark will help the WNBA, she thinks the impact will extend beyond basketball to other women’s sports.

“If you’re a Women’s Soccer League, you are going to go into the broadcast meeting and say, ‘You better pay us because people will watch women’s sports. Here’s the evidence.’ And I think it’s going to have even a ripple effect beyond that. … There are kids who have been watching Caitlin Clark who now believe they are as good as any of the little boys in their class next to them in a way that maybe they didn’t agree or a year or two ago. And you cannot underestimate the power of that.”