Sunday’s NCAA Women’s National Championship game was everything basketball fans hoped it would be: a thrilling, nail-biting, back-and-forth battle between the Iowa Hawkeyes, featuring Wooden Award Player of the Year Caitlin Clark, and the undefeated South Carolina Gamecocks.

It was the perfect culmination to an incredible, historic season, the kind of game that would’ve been scripted if the past five-and-a-half months had played out on a movie screen instead of the TV screens and highlight clips of real life.

Yet weeks before South Carolina cut down the nets following their 87-75 victory over Iowa, we were already knee-pad-deep into a discourse about what is to come, about how to maintain the momentum that’s been generated during this whirlwind of a season.

Generally, the conversation is centered on Clark, the superstar guard who Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley said was “one of the GOATs of our game,” despite never winning a championship during her college tenure. And many people – analysts, commentators, sportswriters, podcasters – wonder who the next Caitlin Clark will be.

I want to despise Caitlin Clarkfor taking my school's rival to new heights. But I can't.

Clark is, after all, a generational talent who was must-see TV this year. And thanks to an eager media machine that happily chopped Clark’s name, image, and likeness into a million individually monetized bites and served them back to us, one by one, we saw her. A lot. So we know that Clark’s on-court performance is the stuff of highlight reels and think pieces and sure-to-come documentaries.

But for those who’ve been around, who’ve seen the sport grow to a point where Clark can step in and grow into the icon she’s become, we also know that Clark isn’t solely responsible for the current interest in women’s basketball, nor can she be solely responsible for maintaining it into the future.

For that, we need well-built programs and well-coached teams, led by people who will raise up the next generational talent.........

© USA TODAY