When asked about what she said to Caitlin Clark after Iowa’s 94-87 win over LSU in the Elite Eight game in Albany — a game that saw the transcendent Clark score 41 points and tie the NCAA Tournament single-game record with nine 3-pointers — LSU women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey said, “What did I say to her? I said, I sure am glad you’re leaving. I said, Girl, you something else. Never seen anything like it.”
No one has ever seen anything like what we are seeing right now when it comes to women’s college basketball viewership. Clark has shot down plenty of records during her career and she and those who played in Monday night’s game can now add this to their resume: They played in the most-watched women’s college basketball game in history.
Iowa’s win over LSU averaged 12.3 million viewers. That shattered the previous all-time mark set last year for LSU’s win over Iowa in last year’s championship, a game that averaged a record 9.9 million viewers.
Prior to last year, the previous record for an NCAA women’s basketball title game in the ESPN era (since 1996) was 5.68 million viewers for UConn’s title win over Oklahoma in 2002, a game that featured Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi. The previous all-time record for any women’s basketball game prior to…
