Caitlin Clark wanted to play for Geno Auriemma.
But UConn’s Hall of Fame coach passed on pursuing ESPN’s No. 4 recruit in the 2020 class.
And now the two will clash Friday night in Cleveland in the Final Four.
“Her dream school was, like everyone else, UConn,” ESPN’s Wright Thompson wrote of Clark in a recent profile.
“Honestly,” she told ESPN, “it was more I wanted them to recruit me to say I got recruited. I loved UConn. I think they’re the coolest place on Earth, and I wanted to say I got recruited by them. They called my AAU coach a few times, but they never talked to my family and never talked to me.”
While, in retrospect, it would appear Auriemma missed out on acquiring the future NCAA all-time scoring leader, he explained that two major factors contributed to Clark committing to Iowa.
The primary reason for Clark heading to Iowa City centered on Paige Bueckers
The Huskies made the top-ranked recruit their primary target in that star-studded 2020 class that also featured LSU’s Angel Reese (No. 2) and Stanford’s Cameron Brink (No. 3).
Once Bueckers, a point guard like Clark, committed to the Huskies on April 1, 2019, it lessened — if not eliminated — the need for a second elite point guard.
Clark did not commit to Iowa until Nov. 12, 2019.
Auriemma also said that Clark did not make it known she truly wanted to be a Husky.
“Well, there’s a lot of kids we didn’t recruit and there’s a lot of kids who don’t want to go to UConn,” Auriemma said Tuesday, according to CT Insider. “I committed to Paige Bueckers very, very early and it would have been silly for me to say to Paige, ‘Hey listen, we’re going to put you in the backcourt and then I’m going to try really hard to recruit Caitlin Clark.’ I don’t do it that way.
“Caitlin is obviously a tremendous player, a generational player. But if Caitlin really wanted to come to UConn she would have called me and said, ‘Coach I really want to come to UConn.’ Neither of us lost out. She made the best decision for her and it’s worked out great. We made the decision we thought we needed to make.”
Choosing Bueckers over Clark is certainly a defendable decision, and Auriemma even recently said he believes Buckers is the best player in the country.
Here’s everything you need to know about Caitlin Clark’s run at March Madness
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Both players have been sensational during their respective careers, with UConn reaching three Final Fours and one final with Bueckers healthy — she missed all of last season with a torn ACL — while Iowa has now made two Final Fours with Clark and lost to LSU in last year’s national title game.
UConn is 2-0 against Clark and Iowa, defeating the Hawkeyes in the 2021 Sweet 16 and triumphing again in a November 2022 early-season tournament without Bueckers.
