Iowa women’s basketball star Caitlin Clark had 44 points, eight rebounds and six assists as No. 3 Iowa topped eighth-ranked Virginia Tech for an 80-76 victory Thursday night.

After the game, Virginia Tech head coach Kenny Brooks was glowing in his praise of Clark:

“I love my girls (on my team), but sometimes you’re playing checkers and she’s playing chess,” Brooks said. “She’s that good.”

Clark went 13 of 31 from the field and had five 3-pointers on the night. She got to the basket with relative ease, converting multiple layups while getting to the free throw line repeatedly. She made 13 of 17 free throws, and anyone who took a shot at defending her soon wound up the bench in foul trouble.

When she wasn’t scoring, Clark was hard at work making those around her better. She finished with six assists but could have finished with nine or 10, had her Iowa women's basketball teammates not missed some easy buckets.

“She is a generational player and we are going to watch this young lady play for a very long time and she is going to play at a very high level,” Brooks said.

Clark thought that the atmosphere was impressive, similar to a Final Four game.

“It's incredible, honestly,” Clark said of the attention. “It seems like there are a lot of people that are just fans of our game, whether it is Iowa fans or Virginia Tech fans or just people that are here to support women’s basketball. And that is why this game was put on is because they understand how great women’s basketball is and how much it is growing.”

Entering this season, the Iowa women's basketball star needed just 810 points to reach Kelsey Plum's NCAA record of 3,527 points.