Most would say holding the NCAA women’s scoring record would be enough to be considered “great.” Evidently, that’s not enough for Jay Williams.
The ESPN analyst said on “College GameDay” that Caitlin Clark might be the “Stephen Curry of women’s college basketball” and “the most prolific scorer the game of basketball has ever seen,” but that doesn’t quite put her at the next level for him.
“I am unwilling — and maybe it’s more the Kobe [Bryant] mentorship around me — to say that she is great yet,” Williams said. “I hold great, or the levels of immortality or the pantheon, to when you win championships. That’s just me.”
Jay Williams is unwilling to say that Caitlin Clark is great…yet pic.twitter.com/zCxyUbV8bm
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) February 17, 2024
DeCOURCY: Clark discovering not all the greats of women’s basketball welcome her success
Williams went on to explain that in his “great” tiers exist Diana Taurasi, who won three straight national championships along with two National Players of the Year. Breanna Stewart, who won four straight national championships and a player of the year, is also there.
“I’m not saying that [Clark’s] not at a high, high, high level, but for it to go to the state of immortality, in my opinion, it has to culminate with your team winning a championship,” Williams said.
To be clear, winning an NCAA championship is among the most difficult feats to accomplish. Central to doing so is having a deep roster.
Iowa has had a standout roster, one that went to the national championship and lost to LSU in 2023, but it is undoubtedly anchored by Clark and does not feature nearly the depth those UConn teams that Taurasi played on from 2000 to 2004 (those also featured Swin Cash and Sue Bird) or the UConn teams Stewart played on from 2012 to 2016 (those also featured players like Bria Hartlye and Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis).
MORE: Tracking Clark’s path to becoming NCAA D1 all-time scoring leader
Though titles have often been used as a metric to evaluate players based on the class of greatness they have reached, it has certainly never been a barrier for players to be considered great. If that were the case, star athletes like Ted Williams, Ken Griffey Jr., Allen Iverson, Charles Barkley, Dan Marino and Barry Sanders would fall short of meeting that “great” threshold Williams expects.
Williams, for his part, knows what it was like to hoist an NCAA championship, having won in 2001 with Duke, the year before he was named the national college player of the year.
Clark might not have a ring, but she does now hold the official NCAA women’s basketball scoring record, is on track to reach the all-time women’s college basketball scoring record and is likely lining up to reach the men’s or women’s college basketball scoring record. But evidently if Iowa can’t win it all in 2024, she’ll leave college basketball shy of the “great” critera.
