Iowa Hawkeyes guard Lucy Olsen showed a lot of love for Caitlin Clark after her team’s upset win over USC on Sunday.
There’s no question that the biggest story surrounding the Iowa Hawkeyes women’s basketball game on February 2 against the USC Trojans was that after the game ended, the No. 22 jersey of Hawkeyes legend Caitlin Clark was retired and immortalized in Carver-Hawkeye Arena’s rafters.
And while this being the contest’s prevailing story is for good reason, the fact that Iowa produced an upset 76-69 win over the Trojans is another massive narrative. Given Iowa’s struggles over the past month (and for the whole season, compared to their success over the past couple of years), few predicted they’d be able to hang with JuJu Watkins and her USC squad on Sunday.
But because of Iowa standout Lucy Olsen (who finished the game with 28 points on 10 of 18 shooting from the field while also adding 3 steals), the Hawkeyes gave their home crowd another reason to be elated on top of seeing Clark back in their building.
Olsen (who transferred to Iowa from Villanova before this season) has made her adoration of Clark clear in the past. And when speaking with the media after Sunday’s game, she asserted how she felt about spending the weekend in No. 22’s orbit.
“It was really cool,” Olsen said of Clark’s ceremony, per an X post from KCCI’s Jeff Dubrof. “I mean, every time I watch any of her highlights or anything, I’m like ‘Wow, she’s so good.’ And she practiced [with us] the other day, I was like ‘Wow. This is so cool.’
“Yeah, I don’t know, it’s just amazing, and everything she has done for this sport,” Olsen continued. “And that’s part of the reason I’m [at Iowa], because of how much she has grown women’s basketball.”
The Fever have the No. 19 and No. 20 picks in the 2025 WNBA Draft. Olsen is projected to be a second-rounder. Perhaps Indiana will draft Olsen and give her a chance to be Clark’s backup for the 2025 season.
