CLEVELAND — Another day, another national award for Caitlin Clark.
For the second straight season, Clark is the Associated Press National Player of the Year, the outlet announced Thursday. She received 34 votes from the 35-member national media panel that votes on the AP Top 25 each week. Voting happened before the NCAA Tournament began. Clark leads the nation with nine assists and 32 points per game.
Out of West Des Moines, Iowa, Clark is the second Hawkeye and Big Ten student-athlete to earn the distinction since the award was established in 1995. Iowa’s Megan Gustafson won the award in 2019.
Last year, Clark found out she won the award while visiting the Stead Family Children’s Hospital in Iowa City ahead of the NCAA Tournament. This time around, the Hawkeyes played a fun game of Wheel of Fortune. As players yelled out letters inside the Iowa locker room, the puzzle started revealing itself, eventually spelling out, “Caitlin is the AP Player of the Year.”
We’d like to solve the puzzle 🙋♀️
Congrats to our AP Player of the Year, @CaitlinClark22! #Hawkeyes pic.twitter.com/DN6fNUED4k
— Iowa Women’s Basketball (@IowaWBB) April 4, 2024
She also received the Wade Trophy for the second straight year on Thursday, which is awarded annually to the best player in women’s college basketball — the oldest and most prestigious player of the year award in the sport.
She joins Nancy Lieberman, Seimone Augustus, Brittney Griner, Breanna Stewart, and Sabrina Ionescu as two-time recipients of the award.
“The ‘Caitlin Clark effect’ has helped fill arenas across the country, boosted television ratings to record highs, and inspired a whole new generation of young girls to pick up a basketball and play the game,” WBCA Executive Director Danielle Donehew said in a statement. “The many records she set in her collegiate career may one day be broken, but the extraordinary impact she has had on our sport will be everlasting.”
These are just two of many recognitions Clark has received this season, including the Naismith Award, The Athletic National Player of the Year, and Big Ten Player of the Year for the third consecutive time.
The star point guard is also a finalist for the Dawn Staley Award, 94th AAU James E. Sullivan Award, and Nancy Lieberman Point Guard of the Year.
The list of records Clark has broken throughout her career could go on and on. But just this season, No. 22 became the NCAA’s men’s and women’s all-time leading scorer, the first Division-I player to notch back-to-back 1,000-point seasons, and she broke the NCAA record for most points in a single season.
“I’m just very fortunate and very blessed to be able to play for Coach Bluder and have somebody who has believed in me. Our entire coaching staff believed in me before I even committed there,” Clark said after receiving the Wade Trophy. “When I was really in eighth grade they started recruiting me and have loved me the same way over the course of the last eight years. And it’s crazy to think it’s all coming to an end here. But I’m just super grateful to have amazing teammates that have helped me. This is as much theirs as it is mine.”
