Through 35 games, just four teams have defeated Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes during the 2023-24 season. The Colorado Buffaloes think they know how to become the fifth.
It's no secret that the key to stopping Iowa is keying in on Clark. And while shutting down college basketball's all-time leading scorer is a virtually impossible task, the Buffs recognize the blueprint to making life difficult for Clark is keying in on her emotions.
"It'd be hard to get into her head but we're going to try it," Colorado guard Tameiya Sadler told Sean Keeler of the Denver Post.
Last year, Colorado gave Iowa all it could handle in the Sweet 16. The Buffs entered the half with a one-point lead before being outscored 48-37 in the second half of an 87-77 loss.
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In that game, Sadler saw 23 minutes of action off the bench and spent time matched up with Clark, who finished with 31 points, eight assists and three rebounds but also committed four turnovers and three fouls.
With last year's lessons on their minds, the Buffs are focused on getting into Clark's head — and not letting Clark get into theirs.
"Caitlin's very emotional, so for us, it's like, we can't feed into her emotions that she's going to play with," Sadler added. "Because she’s going to fall, she’s going to throw up her hands, she’s going to talk to the refs. But at the end of the day, we can’t focus on that. We have to focus on us.”
Clark is in the midst of a shooting slump by her standards. While she is averaging 31.0 points over her last three games, she is doing so while shooting 40.0 percent from the field and 32.5 percent from 3-point range — marks that fall well below her season averages of 45.6 percent field goal shooting and 37.9 percent 3-point shooting.
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Clark is a player who always wears her emotions on her sleeves, a fact that has held true during this year's tournament. She drew the ire of her own father after expressing frustration at the refs during a March Madness game.
Be that as it may, the emotion that Clark plays with is often what fuels her excellence and dominance on the floor.
Despite Clark's recent shooting woes, Iowa enters the Sweet 16 on an eight-game winning streak and is poised to complete a run to the title after falling just one win short in 2023.
With the nature of the pregame chatter in mind, the Hawkeyes' next test will be their toughest.