With the blowout already in progress, Caitlin Clark eventually exploited the undersized mid-major, finishing with 27 points (8-of-19 field goals), 10 assists and eight rebounds in her penultimate home game.
The best show in college basketball went off script.
Caitlin Clark’s final NCAA Tournament began with a turnover.
It continued with four more before the first quarter concluded.
It featured the greatest scorer in Division I history missing nine of her first 11 shots.
It saw the superstar outworked by an aspiring Cinderella.
It saw the queen pushed around by 16th-seeded peasants, who hit Clark with hard shoulders and an elbow to the jaw and frustrated her with a parade of double-teaming and face-guarding.
It saw Clark’s father, Brent, yell at her from the stands to end an angry diatribe about the latest injustice.
When the first quarter ended, Holy Cross trailed by two, leading to a few rows of purple-clad fans producing the only noise in sold-out Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
Even with Clark’s early struggles, the fantasy soon died, as top-seeded Iowa ran away with a 91-65 first-round win.
The outcome of the monumental mismatch — Holy Cross was a 38.
