Caitlin Clark’s first pro game at Target Center was a full-circle moment

At a Twin Cities hotel, Brent Clark called the Lynx ticket office as his fifth-grade daughter swam in the pool. They had driven from Des Moines to watch the Lynx face Seattle but had yet to get tickets.

The ticket office offered an even sweeter deal: how would his daughter like to come sit courtside during pregame shootaround? How would she like to meet Lynx legends like Lindsay Whalen and Seimone Augustus?

Caitlin Clark would like that, very much.

“Whoever that guy was, you’re my hero, you’re heaven-sent in my life. I don’t even know who you are. I don’t know if you still work for the Lynx,” Clark said. “[It was] obviously a very special memory in my entire basketball career.”

After leading Iowa to two Big Ten tournament titles at Target Center, Clark returned to Minnesota as a WNBA rookie for the first time Sunday. The Fever and the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 WNBA draft beat her favorite childhood team 81-74 in front of an announced sellout crowd of 18,978. Clark finished with 17 points and six assists.

It was the Lynx’s biggest crowd since Game 5 of the 2016 WNBA Finals. No surprise there, with all the attention Clark has received since her breakout college career.

“We were watching video after games, and shots are made, and when we make them on the road, you can hear the crowd, which is not normal,” Indiana coach Christie Sides said.

As a teen, Clark made several trips from Iowa to see her favorite player, Maya Moore, in the heyday of the Lynx’s run to four WNBA titles in seven seasons. When the Fever and Lynx play again at Target Center on Aug. 24, the Lynx will retire Moore’s number.

“If you would have told me that as a young kid I would be playing in the game that her jersey gets retired, it’s very full-circle for me,” Clark said. “She’s like my LeBron James as a kid. So to just be in the building that night and say I got to play in that game is super cool.”

The Clarks’ road trip became a pilgrimage for a contingent of the Iowa-turned-Indiana fans that dotted the crowd with yellow T-shirts Sunday. Iowa gear was just as common as Fever merchandise for fans lined up outside three hours before tipoff.

“You break it, you own it,” read one T-shirt, referring to Clark’s all-time NCAA scoring record. “Iowa has Caitlin Fever.” “You can take the ‘GOAT’ out of Iowa, but you can’t take Iowa out of the ‘GOAT.’” Even a Dowling Catholic jersey, where Clark went to high school. When Clark signed jerseys for a group of young local players, there were tears shed.

“It’s not something that ever gets old for me, to see all these young kids,” Clark said. “Like, how are there this many young girls who really like me in the world?

“These are moments that people spend a lot of time and money and effort to make special. For me to be a small part of that and just getting to do what I love, that’s all I have to do to maybe change their life or give them a memory that will inspire them for the rest of theirs, it’s pretty easy for me, so I feel very fortunate.”

Asked about playing in front of large numbers of Indiana fans pregame, Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said she didn’t care. Lynx fans didn’t, either. When Clark was called for a third-quarter technical foul for hitting Cecilia Zandalasini’s face, Lynx fans cheered like Bridget Carleton had just sunk a three-pointer.

“The crowd was amazing,” Carleton said. “A lot of them were cheering for us, so that was great. [It’s] obviously good to see support for women’s basketball and fun to play in front of a crowd that’s that big.”

But when Clark drove into the paint to give the Fever a 67-65 lead in the fourth quarter and made two clinching free throws with 10 seconds left, the Indiana fans made their presence heard as Clark pumped up the crowd, putting on the kind of show she and her dad would have driven up I-35 to see a decade ago.