One of the most transcendent stars in college basketball history is two wins away from ending her storied career at Iowa with a national championship trophy. Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes head to Cleveland knowing there is unfinished business.
With the record-setting year by Clark has come thousands of fans, especially young girls, and unrelenting Iowa sports betting action.
Clark and the Hawkeyes got to the program’s third Final Four on Monday by rolling over defending champion LSU, 94-87, avenging last year’s one-sided shellacking by Kim Mulkey’s bunch in the championship game.
In the seven-point win, Clark notched 41 points on 13-for-29 shooting. She also hit nine of 20 attempts from behind the arc to tie her career high in a game. It was the first time the legendary guard out of West Des Moines did so in a tournament game.
Now, Clark’s next task is to take down the mighty UConn Huskies in Friday night’s national semifinal. Oddsmakers from Bet365 Iowa have the Hawkeyes as a 2.5-point and -150 moneyline favorite in the contest.
Clark enters that showdown with Paige Bueckers and the Huskies with 441 career points in 15 NCAA Tournament games. That is 38 points behind the all-time mark of 479 points, set by Tennessee’s Chamique Holdsclaw.
With that in mind, IowaBets.com – your source for Iowa sports betting apps – provides you with some hypothetical odds on whether Clark can score her first 50-point game in either of the next two games (should Iowa beat UConn Friday) and whether she’ll be able to notch her first 10 three-point game of her 138-game career over the weekend.
Also, last month, we looked ahead to Clark and her WNBA career.
Odds Clark Scores 50 Points in Final 4 Game
Odds Clark Hits 10 3-Pointers in Final Four Game
Odds Clark Breaks Career Tournament Scoring Mark
Can Caitlin Clark surpass Chamique Holdsclaw’s cumulative NCAA Tournament scoring mark of 479 points?
Can Caitlin Clark Shatter More Records?
Through 15 NCAA Tournament games, Clark has averaged 29.4 points with a career high of 41 points.
Through that 15-game run, Clark has averaged 5.33 threes per game, with a career high of nine in Monday’s regional final against LSU. That means her odds of reaching 50 points or 10 threes in a single game are slim, but not impossible.
The best odds for Clark are the ones around reaching Holdsclaw’s all-time scoring record in the tournament. She only needs 38 points and could have two games (if Iowa beats UConn) to do so.
In two career games against UConn, Clark has scored 21 points (in the 2021 Sweet 16) and 25 points (in the 2022 regular season). Again, with a win, Clark would not have to break the mark in one game.
That’s why we give Clark solid odds (-400) of breaking Holdsclaw’s all-time scoring mark, while pinning her odds as a longshot at best in scoring 50 points (+159900) or hitting 10 threes in a game (+9900) in Cleveland.
According to Caesars Sportsbook Iowa, the Hawkeyes are the second choice to win the title at +310, behind Dawn Staley’s unbeaten South Carolina team (+200). Iowa is ahead of UConn (+700) and North Carolina State (+1400).
If there’s one thing we know about Clark from her incredible run in Iowa City, it’s that she’s made for the blinding lights of the sport’s biggest stage. Never count her out when she aims to achieve the unachievable.
That road to immortality begins in earnest in the heart of Cleveland on Friday night, when Clark and the Hawkeyes will look to topple a red-hot Huskies team in the nightcap of the Final Four.
If you decide to place any kind of wager on the games, be sure to use a Fanatics Iowa sports betting promo code or one from another top operator.
USA Today photo by Zach Boyden-Holmes
