Caitlin Clark says players, coaches in WNBA are ‘a lot smarter’ than in college

After just one season in the WNBA, Caitlin Clark noticed one big difference between women’s basketball at the professional level and basketball at the collegiate level: the IQ needed to thrive.

The 22-year-old Indiana Fever guard was recently named TIME Magazine’s 2024 Athlete of the Year, and in the publication’s profile of her, Clark shared her early impressions of the WNBA’s level of competition.

“Professional players and professional coaches — this is no disrespect to college women’s basketball —are a lot smarter. I love women’s college basketball. But if you go back and watch the way people guarded me in college, it’s almost, like, concerning,” Clark told TIME.

Clark broke numerous records during her time at Iowa, becoming the NCAA Division I women’s career scoring leader and the all-time Division I leader in three-pointers in her final season before leading the Hawkeyes to a second-consecutive national championship game and being named the National Player of the Year.

In her rookie season in the WNBA, she has added more accolades to her résumé, including All-WNBA First Team and Rookie of the Year, after setting the league single-season and single-game records in assists, becoming the first rookie to achieve a triple-double in WNBA history and breaking the rookie scoring record.

While Clark’s college basketball career was not without challenges, namely battling fellow WNBA and college-rival Angel Reese and LSU on numerous occasions and losing her final chance at an NCAA tournament title to the South Carolina Gamecocks, the Iowa native believes the overall college competition could have been better.

“They didn’t double me, they didn’t trap me, they weren’t physical. And it’s hard. It’s college. A lot of those women will never go on to play another basketball game in their life. They don’t have the IQ of understanding how the game works. So I completely understand it. And it’s no disrespect at all. They don’t have the IQ. You have to simplify it for girls at that age.”

Clark, who was selected No. 1 overall in the 2024 WNBA Draft, hasn’t had it that easy in the WNBA but has found a way to excel through the growing pains.

The Indiana Fever finished the season 20-20 and were eliminated in the first round of the WNBA playoffs.