Clark, Garza Named Student-Athletes of the Month

Clark, Garza Named Student-Athletes of the Month

Credit Source: University of Iowa Athletics

IOWA CITY, Iowa — The University of Iowa Student-Athletes Academic Services (SAAS) announced Thursday Caitlin Clark (women’s basketball) and Luka Garza (men’s basketball) have been named January’s Student-Athletes of the Month.

Clark, a freshman guard from Des Moines, Iowa, helped the Iowa women’s basketball team to four wins in the month of January, scoring 20+ points in six of seven contests. Clark recorded two of her team-high six double-doubles in January, highlighted by her then career-high 37-point, 11-rebound performance against Minnesota on Jan. 6.

Clark leads the Big Ten and ranks second in the nation in scoring (26.6 points per game), is one of only two individuals in the country to record seven 30-point games, becoming the first freshman to do so since the 2015-16 season.

Clark has tallied 16 Big Ten Weekly honors on the season, including 10 freshman honors. Clark’s 10 Freshman of the Week honors and four Player of the Week nods tie Big Ten records.

Clark is the first Iowa freshman to record 400-plus points, 100-plus rebounds, and 100-plus assists in a season. Clark currently ranks third on Iowa’s all-time freshman scoring list with 451 points. The record holder is Jaime Printy with 501 points during the 2009-10 season.

Clark, who was on the Dean’s List in her first semester as a Hawkeye, is a candidate for numerous national awards, including the Dawn Staley award, presented to the nation’s top guard.

The Hawkeyes will play their first of five remaining regular season games today at home against Penn State. Tip is set for 3 p.m. (CT) and the game will be televised on Big Ten Network.

Garza, a senior from Washington, D.C., leads the nation in points per game (24.5), player efficiency rating (28.25), 30-point games (6), and is 44 points away from passing Roy Marble (2,116) to become Iowa’s all-time leading scorer.

In the month of January, Garza led the nationally-ranked Hawkeyes to four straight wins, leading Iowa in scoring in all six games, averaging 24.3 points, with three games of at least 25 points.

A National Player of the Year candidate, Garza reached 2,000 points in 113 games – faster than any other Big Ten player over the last 25 years. He is the only student-athlete in Big Ten history to accumulate 2,000 points, 800 rebounds, 125 blocked shots, and 100 3-pointers in a career, and only individual from a major conference with those numbers since the 1992-93 season. Garza is also one of 11 Hawkeyes to post two 500-point seasons during their career and he is the only Hawkeye in school history to amass four 400-point seasons.

The Hawkeyes will play their first of five remaining regular season games tonight against Wisconsin at 6 p.m. (CT) inside the Kohl Center in Madison, Wisconsin. The game will be televised on ESPN.