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Iowa-Maryland second most-watched women's college hoops game this season with nearly 1.6 million viewers

On3 imageby:Sam Gillenwater•02/06/24•

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Iowa G Caitlin Clark
Tommy Gilligan | USA TODAY Sports

Iowa G Caitlin Clark draws as much attention as any athlete in their respective sport. That continues to be proven based on the viewership statistics for any given game involving her or the Hawkeyes.

Per Austin Karp at the Sports Business Journal, Iowa vs. Maryland earned an audience of 1.588 million people on Saturday. That was good for the second-best viewership of the entire season in women’s collegiate basketball.

The matchup between the Hawkeyes and Terrapins was second behind only one other game. That contest also featured Iowa when they played Ohio State on NBC on January 21st two weeks prior. That game, one in which the Buckeyes upset the Hawkeyes by a final score of 100-92 in overtime, posted an audience of 1.93 million.

Per an additional quote tweet from Karp, Iowa has been part of three of the top-five games to this point of the women’s basketball season.

The Hawkeyes won 93-85 inside the XFINITY Center in College Park on Saturday. Maryland made it a game in the third and fourth quarters after Iowa took an 18-point lead. In the end, though, the No. 3 team in the nation, which is now up to No. 2 with a record of 21-2, closed it out on a 17-9 run.

The eight-point win was just the latest sensational performance for Clark this season. She scored 38 points (13-29 FG, 7-17 from three) while finishing with 12 assists and six rebounds. It was her sixth straight game with 30 or more points. In total, it was her 14th such outing in 23 appearances in her senior season.

Clark is now averaging 32.4 points, 7.9 assists, and seven rebounds as the nation’s leader in scoring and assists. She is also well on her way to breaking the all-time scoring record in women’s hoops at the collegiate level.

Women’s basketball is seeing quality viewership numbers this season with some of its players and teams across the country in this campaign. Clark is a factor on her own, though, based on the spotlight that she attracts as a show on her own as the leader of the Hawkeyes.

Iowa takes not-so-subtle dig at Sheryl Swoopes over inaccurate Clark comments

Following some comments from Sheryl Swoopes suggesting that Caitlin Clark would hold a tainted record should she break the all-time women’s scoring record that Kelsey Plum holds, the University of Iowa is fighting back.

In making her point, Swoopes had several factual errors about Clark’s background that were significant enough to it render most of what she was saying about Clark as pointless. Iowa responded by issuing a clarification with a simple, yet genius, tweet.

In other words, Clark’s record will not only be valid. She’ll also almost certainly accomplish it in fewer games than Plum achieved the feat in.

The bottom line is Swoopes made some out-of-pocket comments and Iowa has set the record straight. Now we’ll all watch and wait as Caitlin Clark chases history over the next few games.