- Caitlin Clark recorded an incredible 31.8 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 10.0 assists per game in the NCAA Tournament.
- Her Iowa Hawkeyes lost the title contest to the LSU Tigers despite her 30 points and eight assists.
Kim Mulkey knows talent when she sees it.
And when it comes to Iowa Hawkeyes superstar Caitlin Clark, she sees it.
Just two years after returning home to Louisiana to assume the helm in Baton Rouge, the Hall of Fame head coach led her LSU Tigers to their first national championship in program history with a 102-85 victory against Clark and the second-seeded Hawkeyes. Despite her team's losing effort, the Iowa point guard led all scorers with 30 points on the afternoon.
After the final buzzer sounded, Mulkey took the opportunity to commend Clark for her stellar season. She pulled the Hawkeyes junior aside during postgame handshakes and offered her high praise, including calling her "a generational player."
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During her emotional postgame press conference, Clark offered "all the credit in the world to LSU" and commended Mulkey, who she said, "coached them so, so well."
"She's one of the best basketball coaches of all time, and it shows," Clark said. "She only said really kind things to me in the handshake line, so I'm very grateful for that too."
The day before the national championship game, Mulkey lauded Clark for both her scoring ability and the court vision that has made her the nation's assists leader for each of the past two seasons. The National Player of the Year averaged a mind-boggling 31.8 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 10.0 assists per game in this year's NCAA Tournament en route to breaking several records.
Mulkey's "first time [seeing] her play in person" was Clark's 41-point masterclass against the previously undefeated South Carolina Gamecocks in the Final Four Friday night. The four-time national championship-winning coach admitted, "I couldn't take my eyes off her. Gosh, she's special. She's special."
"I've never seen a player — I don't like to use the word 'never,' but I don't know that I've ever seen a player that can do what Caitlin does," Mulkey said. "She's going to get her points. That girl is phenomenal shooting the ball. But the most impressive thing to me, now that you're talking to an old point guard, is she makes everybody around her better."
"You have great players that can get numbers, but she makes others on her team better," she added.
Mulkey further expanded upon her praise for Clark during her press conference after the championship game. She commended her own players for defending well while "playing against a generational talent in Clark," adding that her team "knew Caitlin was going to shoot the ball. We knew she was going to make her threes."
"Alexis Morris guarded two of the finest women's basketball players that our game has," Mulkey said. "She did it against Amoore with Virginia Tech, and she did it tonight."
"She didn't keep them from scoring — they're that good," she added. "But what she did is she made every shot they took a little bit more difficult instead of easy."
Unfortunately for Mulkey, she and her team may have to face Clark again. The sharpshooter has two more years of collegiate eligibility, and while she plans to stay at Iowa for her senior season, she has publicly hinted that she may take advantage of a fifth year afforded to NCAA athletes whose seasons were impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.