Iowa women's basketball star Caitlin Clark isn't too happy with the recent GOAT debate involving her name, highlighting that it seems unfair for someone to be judged by one game of basketball rather than the impact they had on the sports.
Fans and experts alike are debating whether or not Clark needs to win a national championship in order to solidify her status as the Greatest of All Time. There's a group that says Clark has done more than enough to make a claim for the title, especially now that she's the NCAA's all-time leading scorer and has broken and set plenty of records along the way. Sure enough, there's no one–not this year or ever–who has had a bigger influence in the growth of women's basketball than the Hawkeyes sharpshooter.
However, there are those who also firmly believe that in order to be in the GOAT conversation, one needs to win a championship. New York Liberty superstar Breanna Stewart was one of those people.
“Because you're going to look 10 years back and you're going to see all the records she's broken and the points and stuff like that, but anybody knows, your goal when you play college basketball is to win a national championship. So, you need one,” Stewart explained when asked on her take about Clark's need to win a natty.
Caitlin Clark speaks out on GOAT debate
Clark, however, expressed her belief that it's an unfair metric. After all, can anyone really judge someone's whole career with just that one single game? Will we really forget everything that a player has done just because they didn't get to lift the championship trophy?
At the end of the day, basketball is a team sport and no individual can win a championship alone. With that being said, should it really be taken against a player for not winning a title in their career?
The Hawkeyes star highlighted as much as she shared what she wants her legacy to be, beyond just the GOAT conversation.
“I've played basketball at this university for four years, and for it to come down to two games and that be whether or not I'm proud of myself and proud of the way I've carried myself and proud of the way I've impacted people in their lives, I don't think that's a fair assessment,” Clark said, via ESPN.
“I don't want my legacy to be, ‘Oh, Caitlin won X amount of games,' or ‘Caitlin scored X amount of points.' I hope it's what I was able to do for the game of women's basketball. I hope it is the young boys and young girls that are inspired to play this sport or dream to do whatever they want to do in their lives. For it to come down to 40 minutes and for me to validate myself within 40 minutes, I don't think that's a fair assessment.”
Regardless of the others' opinions about her, there's no denying that Caitlin Clark has done a lot for women's basketball, not just college hoops. The interest in the game is at an all-time high largely because of her wondrous feats on the court. She convinced everyone to take a look in the game and managed to keep them interested. Of course she didn't do it alone. Paige Bueckers, JuJu Watkins, Cameron Brink, Dawn Staley and her South Carolina Gamecocks and many more deserve their credits as well. But no one can argue against the fact that Clark is at the center of that storm.
Clark has a chance to silence those people who say that she needs to win a title to make her GOAT claim when the Iowa women's basketball team meet Staley and the South Carolina women's basketball squad on Sunday in the national championship. But win or lose, Clark's legacy is already forever etched in the history books of collegiate basketball.
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