Caitlin Clark helped off after court storming collision

The No. 18 Ohio State Buckeyes women’s basketball team pulled off an impressive 100-92 overtime win at home against the No. 2 Iowa Hawkeyes Sunday, and did so despite a 45-point performance from Iowa star Caitlin Clark. And fans stormed the court afterwards. But, in that chaos, someone appeared to make contact with Clark, who was helped off. Here’s video of the court storming, as seen on the NBC/Peacock broadcast:

Here’s a zoom in on the part involving Clark (around 0:08):

And here’s a different angle from the stands:

Clark was helped off, and appeared to be in significant pain:

Fortunately, Clark said afterwards this doesn’t seem to be a severe injury:

But this is going to lead to much more discussion of court storming and if it should be banned or not. There are fines for schools whose fans storm the field or court in many conferences, and the SEC increased theirs (to $100,000 for the home school’s first violation, $250,000 for its second, and $500,000 for subsequent violations) last summer, but the Big Ten does not prohibit court-storming.

At any rate, this somewhat overshadowed what was a remarkable game. Clark shone for Iowa with 45 points (one low of her NCAA career-high) on 12 of 25 shooting from the field and seven of 18 from deep, but a team effort from Ohio State (led by 33 points from Cotie McMahon and 24 from Jacy Sheldon) proved to be enough for the Buckeyes to triumph, even if it took overtime. And they handed the Hawkeyes their first loss since November, and only their second of the season:

And this game got an excellent slot on NBC and Peacock as the lead-up to Football Night In America (ahead of the Detroit Lions-Tampa Bay Buccaneers divisional round playoff game), and it presumably got a big audience from that as well. And it’s good to hear that Clark doesn’t seem to have been seriously injured from this. But this will likely lead to a lot more discussion of court storming.

[The Field of 68 on Twitter/X]