Even Though Iowa Star Caitlin Clark Broke Scoring Record, AP Claims She Probably Still Won't Reach It This Year: Here's Why
Many sports fans enjoy comparing athletes from different eras because, in most cases, statistics tell only part of the story.
On Feb. 15, Iowa Hawkeyes point guard Caitlin Clark broke the all-time scoring record for NCAA Division I women’s basketball.
With 49 points in her team’s 106-89 victory over Michigan, Clark had 3,569 for her career, surpassing former Washington Huskies guard Kelsey Plum’s mark of 3,527.
3,528 🐐@CaitlinClark22 surpasses Kelsey Plum to become the NCAA Women’s Basketball all-time leading scorer!#NCAAWBB x @IowaWBB pic.twitter.com/dlCHpYCScr
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessWBB) February 16, 2024
Her record-breaking shot was a signature 3-pointer from very deep:
EVERY angle of Caitlin Clark’s record-breaking shot! 🎯@IowaWBB | @BigTen pic.twitter.com/b6w08STZUc
— NBC Sports (@NBCSports) February 16, 2024
According to The Associated Press, however, Clark remains “unlikely” to break the women’s college basketball scoring record this season.
So what gives? Why the confusion?
After all, even former President Barack Obama congratulated Clark by calling her “the greatest scorer in the history of women’s college basketball!” And if Obama said it, then it must be true, right?
“Congrats to @CaitlinClark22, the greatest scorer in the history of women’s college basketball! It’s been fun watching you and the @IowaWBB team this season,” Obama wrote on the social media platform X.
Congrats to @CaitlinClark22, the greatest scorer in the history of women’s college basketball! It’s been fun watching you and the @IowaWBB team this season.
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) February 16, 2024
Well, Clark did break the NCAA Division I women’s basketball scoring record.
In fact, Lousiana State’s Angel Reese, who infamously taunted the Iowa star during the 2023 NCAA women’s national championship game — a 102-85 LSU victory — sent congratulations to her on-court rival.
Congratulations @CaitlinClark22 KEEP BREAKING RECORDS & MAKING HER-STORY! 🖤💛🔥 https://t.co/jWn7QZZdkQ
— Angel Reese (@Reese10Angel) February 16, 2024
On the other hand, as the AP noted, the “overall record in women’s hoops” doesn’t belong to Clark or Plum. It belongs to Pearl Moore.
From 1975 to 1979, Moore starred at tiny Francis Marion in Florence, South Carolina. In her prolific four-year career, she scored an incredible 4,061 points.
Moore entered the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011. Ten years later, she was enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, which honors both men’s and women’s players.
Clearly, therefore, the Francis Marion legend ranks among the game’s all-time greats.
In Moore’s day, however, women’s college basketball fell under the organizational umbrella of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women.
Founded in 1971, the AIAW oversaw women’s collegiate sports for more than a decade.
Then, in the early 1980s, the AIAW sued the NCAA, alleging unlawful use of “monopoly power in men’s college sports to facilitate its entry into women’s college sports and to force AIAW out of existence.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, including then-Circuit Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg, ruled against the AIAW, which was dissolved in 1982.
Small wonder, therefore, that the NCAA does not go out of its way to recognize AIAW records.
In any event, ancient legal disputes aside, Moore’s scoring record came in a very different on-court context. And depending on one’s perspective, that context could make either record appear more impressive than the other.
On one hand, Moore played at a small school with comparatively meager resources. Francis Marion, in fact, did not gain university status until 1992.
Nonetheless, Moore faced strong regional competition. Her 1976-77 squad, for instance, finished 21-11 against a schedule that included home-and-away games with present-day Division I schools such as Clemson University, the University of South Carolina and the College of Charleston.
Furthermore — and this is by far the most significant fact in favor of Moore’s record — the Francis Marion sharpshooter played her college career without a 3-point line.
“I’m not the only one that affects,” the 66-year-old Moore told the AP, noting the apples-and-oranges comparison between eras. Indeed, many women’s basketball players from the 1970s and early 1980s would have amassed higher career point totals had they played under today’s rules.
On the other hand, Clark set the all-time NCAA Division I scoring record in an era when many young girls grow up playing basketball and the women’s game has assumed national dimensions.
In the aforementioned 1976-77 season, for instance, Moore’s team did not even travel outside the state of South Carolina until an AIAW Small College National Tournament game in Pomona, California, on March 22, 1977 — the team’s 29th game of the season.
Clark, meanwhile, has excelled against an immeasurably deeper pool of female basketball talent.
Of course, despite the AP calling it “unlikely,” Clark could put the overall scoring record question to rest later this season.
Great story on a true Womens hoops legend by my colleague @PIacobelli_AP : The women’s scoring record belongs to Pearl Moore. Caitlin Clark is unlikely to reach it this year (from @AP) https://t.co/2mEAJPpMzk
— Teresa Walker 👑 (@TeresaMWalker) February 15, 2024
After Thursday’s game against Indiana — an 86-69 defeat in which Clark had 24 points — she trailed Moore by 468 points, and her Hawkeyes had only three remaining regular-season games on their schedule.
Should Iowa advance to the championship games of both the Big Ten conference tournament and the NCAA tournament, however, Clark would have an additional nine games to add to her career total. In that case, she would need to average 39 points per game to pass Moore’s overall total — a very tall order but not impossible. (She averages 32.4 per game this season.)
Then again, according to Yahoo Sports, Clark could also use a COVID-19 eligibility waiver and stay at Iowa for another season rather than embark on a professional career after the current season. That, of course, would almost certainly result in her obliterating all conceivable scoring records.
Either way, Moore said she has enjoyed watching Clark play.
“She can lead her team, she can pass and she can score,” the Florence native said of Clark, according to the AP. “Those are three key components to being a great player.”
At the same time, one senses that the former Francis Marion standout simply hopes that she will not be forgotten.
“Just tell those [TV] analysts to make sure they call it right,” Moore said, referring to the NCAA Division I scoring record as opposed to her overall mark.
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