CLEVELAND -- Iowa's Caitlin Clark and UConn's Paige Bueckers both stressed that Friday's national semifinal showdown between the Hawkeyes and the Huskies (9 p.m. ET, ESPN) was all about their teams, not them.
UConn's Geno Auriemma, who is coaching in the women's Final Four for the 23rd time, sees the individual superstar matchup in a more historical lens. He recalls the 1979 men's national championship game between Magic Johnson (Michigan State) and Larry Bird (Indiana State) as helping elevate not just March Madness but the NBA.
"[With] Magic and Bird, TV all of a sudden started paying more attention," Auriemma said during Thursday's sessions with media at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse. "Those two particular players came on, and it just lit everything up, and it just took off from there.
"So [the game] needs some stars. It needs people that have the right personality, the right game. And we have that now."
That's true with two guards who are must-watch standouts. Clark leads the nation in scoring (32.0 PPG) and assists (9.0 APG); she has scored more points (3,900) in her Iowa career than any men's or women's player in Division I history. She's coming off a 41-point, 12-assist performance in a win over LSU in an Elite Eight game on Monday that drew a record television audience of more than 12 million.
Bueckers was the national player of the year as a freshman in 2021 and has made it to the Final Four each of the three seasons she has been healthy enough to play. Bueckers missed 2022-23 with a knee injury, and UConn missed the Final Four for the first time since 2007. Bueckers had 28 points and 10 rebounds in UConn's regional final victory over USC; she is averaging 22.0 points and 3.9 assists.
Clark said Thursday that she reached out to Bueckers before this season to wish her luck on returning after the injury. The two have known each other since they were youngsters on the AAU circuit, with Clark growing up in Iowa and Bueckers in Minnesota. They have also played together with USA Basketball junior teams.
"She knows how to play, a great IQ," Bueckers said of Clark. "I think the biggest thing about her is she competes and she's just a winner."
Bueckers was the No. 1-rated recruit in the class of 2020, while Clark was No. 4 behind Angel Reese and Cameron Brink.
Clark, Reese and Brink could have come back for a fifth year next season because of the COVID-19 waiver from 2020-21, their freshman year. Instead, all have declared for the WNBA draft, which is April 15.
Bueckers could have gone to the draft, too, but she announced in February that she was returning to UConn for the 2024-25 season.
Though this weekend will not be the college conclusion for Bueckers, it will be for Clark. In the 2021 NCAA tournament, which was held in a "bubble" in San Antonio, UConn defeated Iowa 92-72 in the Sweet 16. Clark had 21 points and 5 assists in that game, while Bueckers nearly had a triple-double with 18 points, 9 rebounds, 8 assists. UConn went on to lose to Arizona in the national semifinals.
The next season, Iowa was upset by Creighton in the second round, while UConn went to the NCAA final and lost to South Carolina. Bueckers injured a knee in summer 2022 and had to sit out the 2022-23 season. Clark, meanwhile, led Iowa to the program's second Final Four; its first was in 1993.
Clark said it was cool to see how her and Bueckers' careers have evolved, but added: "[Friday's game is] not Paige versus Caitlin. It takes the entire team to win a basketball game. Both of us are going to do everything we can.
"The coolest thing about Paige is how resilient she is. She's been kind of dealt a tough hand [with injuries] and only has positive things to say about her teammates. And the way she carries herself on and off the court and the way she works hard, none of that has changed. I've known her since she was in middle school; she's always worked that same way, always had that fire and been a leader."
Auriemma, who has coached multiple All-Americans and Hall of Famers, recognizes the Clark-Bueckers matchup as resonating in a way that will help the entire sport. He said the two players have helped grow an audience beyond just fans following their own teams.
"There wasn't like a national consciousness of, 'Hey, we need to watch this.' ... It's gone beyond that now, because of what some of these kids have done," Auriemma said of the difference in fans' viewing habits. "They've created a fan base of women's basketball that they'll watch a great women's game, regardless of whether they have a rooting interest or not in the game."
"There were a lot of great NBA players before Magic and Larry Bird, so why didn't it happen? People didn't make it happen. So those two guys, because they did it in college and people saw them play a lot, they wanted to follow them after they left. [Past great women's players], they didn't have the following. They didn't have the hysteria that these kids have."