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Caitlin Clark and Iowa women's basketball set attendance record at Kinnick Stadium

By Scott Dochterman, The Athletic

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Lisa Bluder jogged toward the Kinnick Stadium home locker room and stopped every few seconds for a quick hug and a photo. Finally, before she entered the tunnel, the longtime Iowa women's basketball coach patted her chest and gestured upward as fans chanted her name.

On the east side of Kinnick Stadium, the four members of the Hendrix family from Racine, Wis., wore bright yellow foam hands they created, each with one letter from the word Iowa. On the west side opposite the UI Children's Hospital, 11-year-old Avery Dose, her parents and younger sisters Camrie and Brynlee wore gold-colored shirts with No. 22 for Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark. They drove nearly five hours to watch the game.

Avery let out a squeal as her hero rushed down the stadium's tight sidelines slapping as many hands as possible, including her own. Before leaving the field, Clark turned toward a different section and embraced hundreds of other fans as quickly as possible before meeting Bluder and her teammates.

At a 94-year-old football stadium on a brisk and blustery Sunday afternoon, the Iowa women's basketball team and their counterparts from DePaul made history. Their exhibition attracted 55,646 fans — a record crowd to watch a women's basketball game. The Hawkeyes' 94-72 exhibition win provided a footnote to the pomp and circumstance as did Clark's 34-point triple-double. The moment itself was bigger than Bluder could have possibly imagined.

"When I first started, I probably played in front of 55 people," said Bluder, 62, the Big Ten's winningest women's basketball coach who is entering her 39th season as a head coach. "Now we're playing in front of 55,000. So we have come a ways."

Everywhere you looked there were moments, and they were all different. For the football team, which experiences them at every home game, they are special. For the women's basketball team — past and present — they are unique.

Bluder attended the wedding of her best friend's son Saturday night, which kept her excitement about the game under wraps. But when the bus carrying the team pulled up outside of the stadium's south side at exactly noon, she couldn't believe what she saw. More than 2,000 fans lined the entryway as the players and coaches walked toward the 12-foot Kinnick statue. Just like the football players at each home game, the basketball players touched the statue on their way into the stadium.

"It reminded you of the Final Four," Bluder said. "It brought those memories back where Hawk fans were there. Our band was there. That's when I got my first of many emotional minutes today at the Hawk Walk."

For Clark, the moment crystallized with the introduction of the kid captain, 12-year-old Krysty Bujakowska, who is dealing with bone cancer.

"She gave me her little player card and it says her favorite Hawkeye is Caitlin Clark," Clark said. "I'll keep that forever. Those are the moments that you kind of keep forever. That matters way more than how I could have played today or how I'll play the rest of the season."

For guard Kate Martin, the moment meant getting to perform The Wave as a participant. Martin, the daughter of a high school football coach, had performed it several times as a spectator. But waving to the patients at the children's hospital while in uniform "exceeded expectations. "

For the entire team, the I-O-W-A chant early in the fourth quarter reached more than 100 decibels and stretched for nearly 10 minutes. It became so loud the team could not concentrate and a 26-point lead entering the quarter dwindled to 11 points.

"That chant went on forever," Bluder said. "I could not communicate with our team during it, but I loved it. It was so much fun. I think I lost a little focus. I think the team lost a little focus during that time but go for it."

"That's not always something that you get in Carver, the I-O-W-A chant," Clark said. "I was like, I can't hear or think right now because it was so loud and they didn't stop."

"It felt like an hour," Martin said. "It was insane."

The moment also was special for those who helped elevate Iowa women's basketball to the place where the program could host an event like this. Hanging out north of the court were former Iowa guard Kathleen Doyle and center Megan Gustafson. Doyle was the 2020 Big Ten women's basketball player of the year, a year after Gustafson won the award. Gustafson also was the 2019 Naismith Trophy winner and has her No. 10 jersey retired.

"You always want to leave it in a better place, and they just keep getting better and better and raising the level," Doyle said. "It's great for Iowa basketball, but it's great for the women's game in general. It's really special to see."

"Just to be able to come back and see how it's grown and how much attention Iowa gets, it makes me happy, it makes me emotional, it makes me proud," Gustafson said. "Just really happy to be here."

Bluder was thankful for DePaul coach Doug Bruno, who agreed to compete in the exhibition. The Hawkeyes allowed a Blue Demons hype video to air when DePaul took the court. Midafternoon temperatures reached 55 degrees and the wind made for difficult free-throw and perimeter shooting, but Clark said it felt like a day in her driveway. From the pregame flyby to the post-event fireworks to the "Back in Black" entrance, the entire day was a special memory.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing," Clark said. "It's just special, and … the amount of people just screaming for us, it just kind of takes your breath away."