As Caitlin Clark continues working her way back this WNBA season after dealing with multiple injuries last year, her focus remains the same: leading the Indiana Fever toward a championship. But amid the chaos of the ongoing season, Clark took a moment to reflect on the journey that changed everything for her long before she became a pro. And while most conversations around her Iowa career still center around the championships she never won, the 24-year-old made it clear that she views those years very differently.

During a recent conversation with John Mallory, global co-head of Wealth Management, Clark opened up about her time with the Iowa Hawkeyes women’s basketball and explained why falling short in back-to-back national championship games never became something that haunted her.

“When I was in college, you looked at our roster, it wasn’t players that were highly recruited,” she said. “It was a team that really believed we could accomplish something. We hadn’t been to the final four since 1992. But the only people that really believed that we could get there at first were me and Coach Bluder and then eventually, when you get a collective unit to believe you can accomplish something, and everybody buys into their role. That’s what allowed us to go to back-to-back national championship games.”

“We didn’t win either of them, but people always try to say, ‘ Aren’t you mad you never won a national?’ I mean, like, yes. But that doesn’t keep me up at night because those are my best friends, and a lot of them don’t even play basketball anymore. Those times were really all they had. I think the culture that we had got us way further than any sort of skill we had,” Caitlin Clark further added.

That answer perfectly summed up what made Iowa’s run so unique. Yes, Clark was a superstar and one of the biggest recruits in the country coming out of high school. But the roster around her was never built like the traditional powerhouse programs they constantly faced in March Madness.

Programs like the South Carolina Gamecocks and UConn Huskies regularly stack their rotations with five-star recruits and McDonald’s All-Americans. But Iowa did not! Now, whether they couldn’t or simply didn’t is a completely different conversation. But the team they built shared a level of chemistry and trust that people still talk about today.

Besides Clark, Iowa’s core was built around players who fully bought into their roles. Kate Martin became the emotional glue of the team. Monika Czinano developed into one of the country’s most efficient scorers. Gabbie Marshall constantly handled difficult defensive assignments while sacrificing offensive opportunities, and McKenna Warnock anchored Iowa’s spacing and versatility.

Their chemistry became most obvious during Iowa’s stunning Final Four upset over undefeated South Carolina in 2023. While Caitlin Clark understandably grabbed the headlines, the win was really a reflection of how connected the entire roster had become. Every player understood exactly what the team needed from them. And that culture started with coach Lisa Bluder and Iowa’s fast-paced offensive system built on trust and unselfishness.

Maybe that is why Clark looks back at those championship losses differently than most people expect. Yes, Iowa fell short in both 2023 and 2024. But for her, the memories attached to those runs were always bigger than the trophy itself.

Today, Martin continues her basketball career with the Los Angeles Sparks, while players like Marshall, Warnock, and Czinano have largely moved into the next chapters of their lives away from basketball. But the bond that carried Iowa to back-to-back national championship games still remains one of the defining parts of Clark’s journey.

That perspective becomes even more interesting when you realize Clark nearly never joined Iowa in the first place.

Caitlin Clark Almost Chose Notre Dame Over Iowa

Long before Clark became the face of Iowa basketball, there was a very real chance she never would have worn a Hawkeyes jersey at all.

During an appearance on the Post Moves podcast with Candace Parker and Aliyah Boston, Clark admitted that the Notre Dame Fighting Irish heavily pursued her during the recruiting process. At the time, Notre Dame was one of the biggest powerhouse programs in women’s college basketball under legendary coach Muffet McGraw.

They won the national championship in 2018 and followed it up with another trip to the title game in 2019. For most recruits, that would immediately make them choose a proven dynasty over a rebuilding hometown program.

But Caitlin Clark saw things differently.

“I loved the idea of staying home and trying to take a place that meant a lot to me, to the state of Iowa, to somewhere they hadn’t been in a really long time,” she said.

That decision ultimately changed everything for Iowa. Because before Clark arrived, the program never played in a national championship game. But with her, they made two back-to-back appearances.

That is probably why Caitlin Clark never viewed those championship losses the same way everybody else did. For her, Iowa was never just about the ring. It was about proving that a group nobody fully believed in could still change women’s college basketball forever.