Caitlin Clark's next game might make you feel better about the world. Here's how to watch (PO)

It’s easy to give in to hyperbole when talking about sports.

In fact it’s almost impossible not to. Who among us, for instance, hasn’t said that the Arizona Cardinals were the most-exciting thing going? (Ahem. Clears throat, bows head, weeps silently. I swear it made sense at the time.)

But it’s no hyperbole to say that Caitlin Clark, the superstar basketball player at the University of of Iowa, is the most fun to watch of anyone playing today — playing anything, man or woman. She’s great, obviously, having just become the leading scorer in Division I college basketball history, breaking the great Pete Maravich’s record. (We’ll get into the supposed apples and oranges of it all, and how that brings out the worst in some people, shortly.)

How to see Caitlin Clark’s next game

We get our next chance to see Clark play in the Big Ten tournament against the winner of the Penn State-Wisconsin game. Tip-off is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Arizona time on Friday, March 8, on the Big Ten Network. She’s already announced that she’s heading to the WNBA after this season. There’s no reason to believe she won’t be good as a pro, too, but nothing is going to match the magic of her college run, so enjoy it while it lasts.

Note how I described watching her: the most fun. I don’t claim she is the best player in any sport, the greatest, whatever. Not to sell her short — she is great, generationally great. But she also has, in addition to the ability to sink shots from the court logo, and the skill to make passes that look like magic tricks, a certain swagger. If you’re rooting for her opponents, she’s arrogant. If you’re rooting for Iowa, she’s confident.

No matter who you’re rooting for, she’s a blast to watch play.

And a lot of people are watching her. An average of 3.39 million viewers watched her break the all-time scoring record against Ohio State on Sunday — with a high of 4.42 million. It was the highest-rated regular-season women’s game since 1999. It was also the second-highest rated college basketball game of the season, period: Only the Michigan State-Arizona men’s game had more viewers at 5.18 million.

The 2023 national championship game, in which Iowa lost to LSU, had an average of 9.9 million viewers, the most for any women’s game in history. The New York Times wrote recently about “Clarkonomics,” the effect Clark has on attendance and ratings.

Clark evokes Magic Johnson or Steph Curry, only different

But all that is business. Let’s get back to the fun. I love watching Clark play because, like Magic Johnson or Steph Curry, you never quite know what she’s going to do with the ball. I also loved Maravich, with his floppy gray socks and wizardry with the ball. (His college career was before my time; I became a fan through one of those Scholastic book-fair biographies.)

So, evidently, do a lot of other people, if some for all the wrong reasons. When Clark broke Maravich’s record (and in the run-up before), the social-media whining began. It goes like this: It took Clark four years to break the record, Maravich only three (freshmen weren’t eligible when he played). Maravich didn’t have a 3-point line. The women’s ball is smaller. Blah, blah, blabitty blah.

Here’s a little secret: Despite the division that seems to poison every aspect of our lives these days, it’s actually OK to just sit back and enjoy something. Even if it’s a strong woman running roughshod over the record books.

There is a lot going on in the world, a lot of it not good. Those things demand and deserve attention.

So does Caitlin Clark. She’s electric, but there’s also something kind of comforting in watching someone be so good at something. I don’t pretend that watching her play basketball is going to unite the nation in a time of need or anything that grand. But I am saying that it can’t hurt.