Caitlin Clark Gets Honest About Never Winning National Championship at Iowa

Caitlin Clark is widely considered one of the biggest icons in college basketball history, and everything she accomplished came while playing for the Iowa Hawkeyes.

While Iowa has long been a respected program, Clark likely could have transferred to a more nationally prominent powerhouse at any point during her career. Instead, she chose to stay close to her roots and help build something special with the Hawkeyes - which is exactly what she accomplished.

During her four-year career at Iowa, Clark swept nearly every major individual award in women's college basketball. She became the all-time leading scorer in Division I history, won the Wooden Award twice, and led Iowa to back-to-back national championship appearances in 2023 and 2024.

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However, the Hawkeyes fell short both times, and Clark recently reflected on never winning a national title during her college career.

"People always say aren't you mad you never won a national - I mean like yes," Clark admitted. "But that doesn't keep me up at night because those are my best friends and a lot of them don't even play anymore and those times were really all they had… culture got us further than any sort of skill we had."

They were certainly a talented group and also featured fellow WNBA player Kate Martin, but as Clark mentioned, several key contributors from those Iowa teams no longer play basketball, including Gabbie Marshall and Sydney Affolter, both of whom played important roles during those deep tournament runs.

Nonetheless, Caitlin Clark is now in her third WNBA season after being selected No. 1 overall following her final year at Iowa and has continued to thrive at the professional level, quickly becoming one of the faces of women's basketball at just 24 years old.

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This story was originally published May 22, 2026 at 12:17 PM.