Catch The Caitlin Clark College Caravan While You Can! She's Going Pro Next Season

Published|Updated

This will be the last time.

When No. 6 Iowa hosts No. 2 Ohio State on Sunday at 1 p.m. on FOX in the regular season finale, it will be the last time superstar women's basketball national scoring leader Caitlin Clark plays a home game for the Hawkeyes. 

Clark announced on X Thursday afternoon that she has declared herself eligible for the WNBA Draft, which will be held April 15 at the Brooklyn, N.Y., Academy of Music. A senior from Des Moines, Iowa, she will skip her fifth season - the extra COVID year.

"While this season is far from over, and we have a lot more goals to achieve, it will be my last one at Iowa," she said on X. "I am excited to be entering the 2024 WNBA Draft."

After the Ohio State game, Iowa and Clark will play in the Big Ten Tournament (March 6-10) at the Target Center in Minneapolis, then the NCAA Tournament. The Final Four will be at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland (April 5-7).

And Clark could go out in more style than any college basketball player - man or woman - ever as she could break Pete Maravich's all-time NCAA scoring record of 3,667 points set in three seasons from 1967-1970.

Clark has 3,650 points in her fourth season at Iowa. With 18 points, she will be the all-time NCAA scoring leader. Maravich did not have the 3-point shot available, but Clark is only the second player ever to have a chance to break Maravich's record. Detroit Mercy's Antoine Davis missed tying Maravich's mark by three points last season in his fifth season.

Clark became Division I women's college basketball's all-time leading scorer - including pre-NCAA players - on Wednesday night when she scored 33 points in a 108-60 win at Minnesota. 

Clark is not expected to break the all-time Division II women's scoring record not recognized by the NCAA. Pearl Moore of Division II Francis Marion in Florence, South Carolina, scored 4,061 points from 1975-79. 

"It is impossible to fully express my gratitude to everyone who has supported me during my time at Iowa," Clark said.

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Guilbeau joined OutKick as an SEC columnist in September of 2021 after covering LSU and the Saints for 17 years at USA TODAY Louisiana. He has been a national columnist/feature writer since the summer of 2022, covering college football, basketball and baseball with some NFL, NBA, MLB, TV and Movies and general assignment, including hot dog taste tests. A New Orleans native and Mizzou graduate, he has consistently won Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) and Football Writers Association of America (FWAA) awards since covering Alabama and Auburn at the Mobile Press-Register (1993-98) and LSU and the Saints at the Baton Rouge Advocate (1998-2004). In 2021, Guilbeau won an FWAA 1st for a game feature, placed in APSE Beat Writing, Breaking News and Explanatory, and won Beat Writer of the Year from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association (LSWA). He won an FWAA columnist 1st in 2017 and was FWAA's top overall winner in 2016 with 1st in game story, 2nd in columns, and features honorable mention. Guilbeau completed a book in 2022 about LSU's five-time national champion coach - "Everything Matters In Baseball: The Skip Bertman Story" - that is available at www.acadianhouse.com, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble outlets. He lives in Baton Rouge with his wife, the former Michelle Millhollon of Thibodaux who previously covered politics for the Baton Rouge Advocate and is a communications director.