Former Notre Dame women’s basketball coach Muffet McGraw has revealed the details of Caitlin Clark’s decommitment from her program during the star’s recruiting process in 2019.
McGraw appeared on the “Good Game With Sarah Spain” podcast on Tuesday, and said that if Clark followed through on her commitment to Notre Dame, then McGraw might still be the coach there. McGraw retired from coaching in April 2020, just months ahead of Clark’s freshman year.
“I may still be coaching if Caitlin Clark came to Notre Dame,” McGraw said.
McGraw says she received a verbal commitment from Clark to play at Notre Dame, but it never felt certain.
“She committed to us, but I had a feeling it was kind of a soft commitment when she did, because she couldn’t decide, couldn’t decide,” McGraw said. “And then finally she said, ‘I want to come.’ But it wasn’t like ‘I’m coming!’ It was kind of like ‘I made the decision.’”
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Notre Dame head coach Muffet McGraw reacts on the sidelines against UConn during the women’s Final Four at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida, on April 5, 2019. (Jasen Vinlove-USA Today Sports)
Then, after a tense and dramatic wait, McGraw found out she would miss out on Clark, who announced her commitment to Iowa on Nov. 12, 2019.
“After that, we waited and waited for her to announce it, because as you know, we’re not allowed to announce anything. The players have to do that themselves,” McGraw said. “So she made the announcement a long time after that, I kept saying ‘When is it coming out?’ And then when she made the announcement, she was going to Iowa. But of course she called me to tell me.”
McGraw’s retirement came shortly after the end of the 2019-20 season, five months after finding out she wouldn’t be coaching Clark, ending a 33-year run that included two national championships in 2001 and 2018.
McGraw went on to call Clark’s decommitment from her program in favor of Iowa, “probably a pretty good decision.”
Clark previously told ESPN that her own family wanted her to play for the Fighting Irish.
“My family wanted me to go to Notre Dame,” Caitlin said. “At the end of the day they were like, you make the decision for yourself. But it’s Notre Dame! ‘Rudy’ was one of my favorite movies. How could you not pick Notre Dame?”
Iowa guard Caitlin Clark cheers during Big Ten Women’s Basketball Championship against Nebraska at the at Target Center on March 10, 2024 in Minneapolis. (Angelina Katsanis/Star Tribune via Getty Images)
Clark then spoke about her experience visiting Notre Dame and her consideration of playing for the Fighting Irish during an interview on the “New Heights” podcast on Jan. 2. She said she ultimately made the decision not to play there because of a feeling in her gut.
“I could feel it in my gut, I was like ‘Ahh, I’m not supposed to go there,'” Clark said.
“I basically narrowed it down pretty early on when I was going through my college recruitment that I wanted to be like in the Midwest, just kind of a homebody. Family person. Just wanted to stay fairly close to home. So that narrowed a lot of stuff down.”
Clark then played her entire four-year college career for the Hawkeyes, where she broke multiple program and NCAA records, including the all-time leading scoring record among all college basketball players, men or women, in history.
Clark also met her current boyfriend, Connor McCaffery, while at Iowa. McCaffery played on Iowa’s men’s basketball team for his father, head coach Fran McCaffery.
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Caitlin Clark dribbles down the court at the All Iowa Attack Basketball Fieldhouse on April 22, 2017, in Ames, Iowa. (Luke Lu/Diamond Images via Getty Images)
Meanwhile, without Clark, Notre Dame fared OK, but not nearly as well as Iowa. Under the leadership of current head coach Niele Ivey, the Fighting Irish made the NCAA tournament three years in a row from 2021-24, but they lost in the regional semifinal all three times, while Clark led much deeper tournament runs in 2023 and 2024.
Clark led Iowa to two straight national championship game appearances, en route to becoming the No. 1 overall selection by the Indiana Fever in the 2024 WNBA Draft. McCaffery was already in Indiana working on the Pacers’ coaching staff, and they are still in the city together as he now works on Butler’s men’s basketball coaching staff.
Clark was named WNBA Rookie of the Year, was selected to the All-Star team, led the WNBA in assists, and helped lead the Fever to the playoffs in her rookie season.
Clark was also named Time magazine’s Athlete of the Year for 2024.
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