Caitlin Clark needs a break before NCAA tournament begins

The universe is trying to tell Caitlin Clark something.

With their third consecutive Big Ten tournament title in hand, Clark and the Hawkeyes now have a week off before Selection Sunday and at least 10 days before their next game. This week just so happens to be Iowa’s spring break, too.

Which means there’s no reason Clark can’t take a few days to kick back and do nothing. Sleep in. Let her textbooks collect dust. Watch bad TV − I hear the latest season of "Love is Blind" is good. Ignore everyone and everything but her friends and family.

Because boy does she need it.

Despite still finding ways to control the game, and even dominate when necessary, Clark often looked gassed during the Big Ten tournament. She finished the tournament shooting 40% (27 of 67) from the floor, six points below her average.

It was even worse from 3-point range, where she hit just 26% (11 of 42), well below her season average of 38%. In the quarterfinal against Penn State, she missed her first 11 shots from long range before finally making two in the fourth quarter.

Clark also had six or more turnovers in all three games, the first such stretch all season.

"This is definitely the hardest one," Clark said after Iowa outlasted Nebraska 94-89 in overtime Sunday. "It’s three in a row but it’s, by far, the hardest."  

To be clear, Clark is still playing at an insane level. Over the last 14-plus minutes of regulation Sunday, she scored (seven) or assisted (four) on every Iowa field goal, and also made a pair of free throws. It was her layup with 33 seconds left that tied the game and sent it into overtime.

But Clark also looks to be running on fumes. And no wonder.

She has spent the entire season at the center of the national spotlight, and it’s been blisteringly hot for the last month. First there was the frenzy surrounding her pursuit of Kelsey Plum’s NCAA women’s scoring record. Then she bettered Lynette Woodard’s all-time women’s record.

Last weekend, she passed Pete Maravich to become college basketball’s all-time leading scorer and celebrated her Senior Day, having announced three days earlier that she will forego a fifth year at Iowa and go pro.

And she still wasn’t done! That first 3-pointer she finally made against Penn State? It was her 163^rd of the year, breaking Steph Curry’s NCAA record for most in a single season.

It isn’t just the expectations and hype surrounding her superlatives, either. Clark is the face of a sea change in women’s basketball − in women’s sports, really − and the transformation is playing out in real time.

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Yes, she plays to sold-out crowds and ratings for her games are through the roof. She’s the face of national ad campaigns and Nike celebrated her by putting up not one, but two massive billboards in Iowa City. Celebrities show up at her games and in her social media mentions.

But it’s the spill-over effect that’s truly remarkable.

It wasn’t long ago that coverage of women’s basketball started and stopped with UConn, even in March. Conference tournaments got shunted to the Ocho, and you could barely find mention of the games beyond box scores or lists of automatic bids.

This weekend, TV coverage of the women’s conference tournaments practically drowned out that of the regular-season finales in the men’s game, culminating in a 7-hour marathon Sunday that began with Iowa and Nebraska on CBS and rolled on with the ACC, SEC and Pac-12 on ESPN.

And that was before South Carolina and LSU had to play the last two-plus minutes of the SEC title game with five players each after Kamilla Cardoso tossed Flau’jae Johnson to the floor and benches emptied.

Clark has changed the game and continues to do so.

Clark says she doesn’t get caught up in the hype surrounding her, but she’s not ignorant to it, either. She might play as if she’s superhuman, but she’s still a 22-year-old college student. The weight of the attention and the expectations, to say nothing of her decision whether to go pro, has to take its toll, even if it’s just the inevitable emotional letdown after so many big moments over the last month.

Clark has handled all this better than most, but even she needs a break. Take the week and recharge.

Because the NCAA tournament will be here before she knows it and the glaring spotlight will be on her once again.

Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.