sport news Caitlin Clark's coronation: WNBA's first draft pick has Indiana basketball fans ... trends now

Maybe it was her white Prada blazer, matching miniskirt, or her diamond cufflinks, but Caitlin Clark was almost unrecognizable at Monday's WNBA Draft in Brooklyn — a considerable accomplishment for one of America's most famous athletes.

Before becoming the obvious first-overall pick by the Indiana Fever, Clark spent the last month guiding Iowa to its second consecutive NCAA championship game while garnering the biggest television audiences in tournament history. In the last few days she's been on Saturday Night Live and NBC's Today Show, not to mention countless publications, websites, as well as the lips and ears of sports fans across the country.

Interest in this year's WNBA Draft was so high, the league opened it up to fans for the first time since 2016 thanks to Clark, the all-time NCAA scoring leader. And back in Indianapolis, the Fever reported more than 17,000 attendees at their WNBA Draft watch party. Clark won't make her WNBA regular-season debut until May 14, but ticket prices on the secondary market have already soared over $500. Meanwhile, the defending-champion Las Vegas Aces have made plans to open up 7,000 more seats when the Fever come to town on May 25.

Clark is accustomed to attention on the basketball court, where her confidence ranks alongside Michael Jordan's or LeBron James'. But it's the other side of the business that she's still learning to tolerate. When her post-draft press conference was completed after weeks of exhausting interviews, Clark quietly turned to a publicist and asked: 'How much stuff do I have to do?'

Just weeks away from graduating at Iowa, the clearly fatigued 22-year-old was only referring to any potential media obligations over the remainder of the evening. But thanks to her unworldly shooting ability and a deft passing touch that she considers 'overlooked,' Clark is now must-see TV. Simply put, the media's demands on Caitlin Clark are just getting started.

'I think obviously the course of the last few weeks has been pretty insane in my life,' she said Monday, trying to remember all the the cities and places she's passed through on her way to a second NCAA championship appearance.

'The last two months playing basketball as long as I possibly could in my college career, and then went home for a couple days,' she continued. 'I got off the plane when we landed in Iowa City, drove directly home, had cook my mom cook me a meal, and then I drove back to Iowa City the next day.

'Then I flew to L.A., flew to New York and now I'm here sitting at this stage.'

Clark was likely speaking of the literal stage she was seated on in the draft's media room or offering a figurative reference to the professional ranks she's now joining.

But in a broader sense, 'this stage' is quickly becoming Clark's to define at a very opportune time. 

The WNBA has enjoyed

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