Caitlin Clark, Kate Martin open up on this Iowa team's legacy, what they're leaving behind

Sunday marked the end of the Caitlin Clark era in Iowa City, as the game-changing Hawkeye’s women’s basketball played her last game for Iowa. Falling in the national championship game for a second straight season this time in a 87-75 loss to undefeated South Carolina.

Coming up just short of a national title twice will always pain the Hawkeyes and their fanbase, but the tremendous success and unprecedented spotlight placed on the program is also priceless. As Clark and teammate Kate Martin spoke about the legacy they’re leaving behind following the final game of their college careers.

“I don’t know if you can really describe and put it into words this legacy. Honestly, I just hope we’ve brought a lot of people joy and we’ve brought a lot of people together,” Martin said. “I hear all the time about how many friends people have made in the stands just watching our games. We sold out every single home game this year at Carver. And everywhere we go, we have fans lining up wanting Caitlin’s autograph, our autograph. More than anything, our legacy is what we’ve brought to the state of Iowa, I think, and all the joy and the fun.”

“It’s pretty cool to be coached by Coach Bluder and the culture she’s built at Iowa,” Martin added. “I think just watching us, you can see the joy that we have. I think that’s the main thing for our legacy.”

Both locally and nationally the impact that Iowa’s women’s basketball team has had is undeniable, bringing the program an unprecedented level of success on the court while selling out home and visiting arenas and setting viewership records on television. With Clark making it clear that she’s more than pleased with what they’ve achieved both on and off the hardwood.

“Yeah, I would agree. I think this group has gone about it in the right way in every single thing that we’ve done in every phase of our life. I think that’s what you can be the most proud of,” Clark said. “We truly have each other’s back. Maybe we weren’t always the most skilled. Maybe we weren’t always the tallest. Maybe we weren’t always the fastest, but we just believed. We knew we could be in these moments. We trusted one another. That took a couple of years to get to that point.”

“There’s been so many great Iowa women’s basketball players to come before us and allow this program to be really, really good when Kate and I and everyone else stepped on campus. And I feel like we took it to a whole nother level. I feel like our program is in good hands moving forward.”

Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder has been with the program since 2000, helping lead the Hawkeyes to 18 of their 30 NCAA Tournament appearances in school history. But there’s no denying that they’ve achieved their highest level of success in the last four seasons with a special group. Making two of the program’s three Final Four appearances ever along with two trips to the national championship game.

“I think more than anything people will probably remember our two Final Fours and things like that. But people aren’t going to remember every single win or every single loss. I think they’re just going to remember the moments that they shared at one of our games or watching on TV or how excited their young daughter or son got about watching women’s basketball,” Clark said. “I think that’s pretty cool.”

The record books and banners will always look upon the Hawkeyes favorably, with Clark being a virtual lock to have her jersey eventually hanging in Carver-Hawkeye Arena. But the unparalleled amount of positive of attention that Clark and her teammates brought to the game of women’s basketball as a whole will define their legacy for many many years to come.

“Those are the things that mean the most to me when people come up to me and — I don’t really get offended when people say I never watched women’s basketball before. I think, one, you’re a little late to the party, yes. But, two, that’s cool. We’re changing the game. We’re attracting more people to it,” Clark explained.

“But at the same time, those little things are, I think, the moments that we’ll remember forever.”