You can\u2019t blame a home team announcer for wanting to pump up their players, but the Golden State Valkyries may have taken it a little too far when talking about Kate Martin and her Iowa teammate Caitlin Clark on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
Martin has been one of the great surprise stories in the WNBA the last couple of seasons. After being drafted in the second round, she became an immediate contributor on a stacked Las Vegas Aces team. That led her to being selected by the Valkyries in the WNBA expansion draft before this season. In Golden State, Martin is averaging 6.7 PPG.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday night, she went off for a career-high 21 points in a close loss to the defending champion New York Liberty.<\/p>\n
But that wasn\u2019t enough praise for play-by-play announcer Derek Clark.<\/p>\n
In the midst of Martin\u2019s great performance, Clark made a curious comment about her time at Iowa where she was famously teammates with the one and only Caitlin Clark.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cEverybody knows Kate Martin because she played with Caitlin Clark at Iowa. But people forget some of the games that Caitlin didnt have it, especially in the tournament which is where Kate really made her name, Kate took over a lot of those games by herself.\u201d<\/p>\n
the silence \ud83d\ude2d\ud83d\ude2d\ud83d\ude2d pic.twitter.com\/BRNPSBaItq<\/a><\/p>\n
\u2014 correlation (@nosyone4) June 26, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\u201cEverybody knows Kate Martin because she played with Caitlin Clark at Iowa. But people forget that, you know, some of the games that Caitlin didn\u2019t have it, especially in the tournament which is where Kate Martin really made her name, Kate Martin took over a lot of those games by herself,\u201d Derek Clark said.<\/p>\n
Ok, let\u2019s back up the truck for just a minute.<\/p>\n
Caitlin Clark may be struggling a bit for her shooting form recently. She\u2019s 13-47 from the field and 1-23 from three-point range in her last three games. But there were incredibly few games at Iowa where the ALL-TIME LEADING SCORER IN COLLEGE BASKETBALL HISTORY \u201cdidn\u2019t have it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark averaged 28.4 PPG throughout her career. She scored less than 20 points just once in her NCAA Tournament career during her sophomore season in a second round loss to Creighton. On the flip side, she scored more than 30 points on eight occasions in NCAA Tournament games.<\/p>\n
Kate Martin was a really good player at Iowa. But at no point did she ever take over games by herself from Caitlin Clark. Martin crossed the 20 point mark once in NCAA Tournament games at Iowa, the 2024 Elite 8 victory<\/a> over LSU, when she scored 21. In that game Clark scored 41 points! Her overall career high at Iowa was a 2023 game against Drake<\/a> where she scored 25 points and Clark scored 35.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s always going to be some wild<\/a> takes<\/a> around Caitlin Clark thanks to her starpower and this one is no exception. But if we\u2019re going to use this analogy, we can also now say that Toni Kukoc took over games by himself from Michael Jordan during the Bulls dynasty.<\/p>\n
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