Caitlin Clark’s outlandish triple-double sends Iowa to Final Four

This was a celebration and a mission. She pointed at the game ball. Yes, that one. She cradled it and disappeared into a circle of bouncing, shouting teammates. Then she managed her final assist of this historically wondrous night, tossing the ball to her father with typical precision while the Hawkeyes basked in a 97-83 victory over Louisville in the Seattle Region 4 final.

It was too soon for Clark to grasp the significance of what she accomplished Sunday. It was too soon for everyone, really. Incessant giggling was the best way to process her outrageous stat line: 41 points, 12 assists, 10 rebounds. It was the ultimate signature performance of a young career bustling with signature performances, a show that exceeded all hype and destroyed all hate, so much hoops wizardry that it made a tense Elite Eight competition seem more like a concert.

Clark, immortal now at age 21, didn’t need to understand it all. She knew enough. She knew to get that ball to her family.

“I hope they got out of the arena in time, so the NCAA can’t chase ’em down,” Clark said, laughing. “I told ’em to run.”

Clark considers herself “maybe a little too goofy at times,” which is a relief because we’re running out of descriptions that capture what a serious talent she is. She transformed Climate Pledge Arena into her amusement park, weaving through versatile Louisville defenders, draining step-back three-pointers, whipping passes from every angle to find shooters. It was the first 40-point triple double in NCAA tournament history. No woman or man had accomplished the feat, and Clark did it in her biggest game to date, with a Final Four at stake that she had vowed to deliver upon committing to Iowa in 2019.

“She is spectacular,” said Iowa Coach Lisa Bluder, who finally gets to take a team to the Final Four after 38 years of coaching and 850 victories. “I don’t know how else to describe what she does on the basketball court. A 40-point triple double against Louisville to go to the Final Four? Are you kidding? I mean, it’s mind-boggling.”

Before a crowd of 11,700, Clark took over in a city that has seen WNBA superstars Sue Bird, Breanna Stewart and Lauren Jackson at their best. Seattle once watched Kelsey Plum score an NCAA women’s record 3,527 points at Washington. In Tacoma, Wash., about 35 miles south of Seattle, Pat Summit won her second NCAA title at Tennessee in 1989. The year before, Louisiana Tech, with Leon Barmore as the head coach and a feisty former all-American named Kim Mulkey as an assistant, did the same in Tacoma. This region…