Caitlin Clark was shockingly candid in regards to the distinction between school basketball and the WNBA

Caitlin Clark is the all-time main scorer in NCAA Division I basketball, ending her profession with 3,951 factors throughout 4 seasons.

Now, when she seems again, she questions why she wasn’t guarded higher.

In a TIME interview with Sean Gregory, Clark famous simply how a lot increased the basketball IQ is within the WNBA than within the girls’s sport.

“Skilled gamers {and professional} coaches — that is no disrespect to varsity girls’s basketball — are lots smarter,” Clark stated. “I like girls’s school basketball. However in the event you return and watch the way in which individuals guarded me in school, it’s virtually, like, regarding. They didn’t double me, they didn’t entice me, they weren’t bodily.”

Clark acknowledged that most of the gamers she confronted weren’t persevering with their careers previous school, and that basketball IQ performed a task.

“A number of these girls won’t ever go on to play one other basketball sport of their life,” Clark stated. “They don’t have the IQ of understanding how the sport works. So I fully perceive it. And it’s no disrespect in any respect. They don’t have the IQ. It’s a must to simplify it for women at that age.”

In her senior season, Clark averaged 32.1 factors, 8.5 assists, and seven.3 rebounds, recording six triple-doubles. Her 2024 event run was punctuated by a 41-point, 12-assist outing in an Elite Eight win over LSU. In that sport, she was primarily guarded by Hailey Van Lith, a 5’ 7 guard who clearly struggled to maintain up together with her.

On the time, many questioned why LSU didn’t double-team her or put a extra bodily defender on her. The top outcome was a 94-87 Iowa victory.

Now, we all know that Clark additionally usually questioned about opposing groups’ and coaches’ lackluster schemes as properly.

Clark struggled within the early days of her WNBA profession, however rapidly discovered her footing, happening to common 19.2 factors, 8.4 assists, and 5.7 rebounds per sport. From the bounce, she confronted a degree of physicality and defensive depth she hardly ever confronted in school.

In her TIME interview with Gregory, an NCAA girls’s basketball sport between USC and Ole Miss was becoming taking part in within the background.

“I really feel like if I used to be on the market, I might actually have 50 [points],” Clark stated. “The faculty sport is a lot simpler than skilled.”