DALLAS — After a month of doing what no woman had done before, Caitlin Clark did what athletes do all the time. She had tears in her eyes, a towel around neck and her head on teammate’s shoulder. She had no more basketball to play and nothing she could do about it. Monika Czinano was there to provide support, emotionally and physically, but no support was enough, emotionally or physically. Clark buried her head deeper into Czinano’s shoulder.
Clark introduced herself to so many sports fans during this NCAA tournament, but now all she could think about was goodbye. Czinano’s Iowa career is over. It ended with the Hawkeyes’ 102–85 loss to LSU in the national championship game.
Iowa fans will remember Czinano; many sports fans will forget. Basketball is a star-driven sport in a star-obsessed world, and Caitlin Clark could become the biggest star the women’s game has ever seen. But there, in a hallway outside Iowa’s locker room at American Airlines Center, Clark was far more concerned with where she has been than where she is going.
