Jay Williams Says Caitlin Clark is Not a Great Player Until She Wins a Championship

Caitlin Clark's epic college basketball career is coming to an incredible end this season as the superstar continues to hit milestone after milestone with each passing game of her senior season. Her most recent accomplishment is her biggest yet. On Thursday she set the all-time scoring record for women's D-1 college hoops and, as we've come to expect, did so in tremendously entertaining fashion. She needed eight points to set the record so Clark went ahead and scored those eight points in the opening two minutes of Iowa's game against Michigan. The record-setting bucket was a pull-up three from way, way, way downtown.

It was, in a word, awesome.

Another highlight moment for Clark in a career full of them. Watching that video should make us all appreciate what's taking place in front of our eyes. We will not see another college basketball player as electric as Clark for many years. It's been many years (maybe decades) since anybody has captured the national attention the way she has for how long she has in the NCAAB realm. One of those players we'll feel fortunate to have watched when looking back years later.

However, her star has soared so high she now exists in the realm of hot-takery. It's rare to see a college basketball player get there, but Clark made it. Which is why she was denied entry to the concept of greatness by Jay Williams on Saturday, with the ESPN analyst saying she can't be called great until she wins a championship.

Caitlin Clark, welcome to the RINGZ discussion.

Yeah, you can see what Williams is saying and all that. You might even agree. But to call Clark anything less than great is just silly and more about semantics than anything. Sure, she hasn't won a national championship, but scoring more points than anybody in the history of women's college basketball is an accomplishment on the same level. So is becoming the Big Ten all-time career leader in assists. And setting the single-season B1G scoring and assist marks. Hell, the graphic running below Williams as he gives his take is a sign of her greatness -- scoring or assisting on 79 points (!!!!) against Michigan, the most of any Division I player in the last 25 years.

Williams' take is a wonderful example of how the championship-or-bust mentality has just gone too far. It is simply not true that Clark's name will not live forever in college basketball lore if she doesn't take home that championship this year. For most players it would be but Clark very much resides in the rarefied air of a player so incredible that she'll never be forgotten, no matter how many titles she missed out on. It is possible to acknowledge that while making the case that her legacy would be incomplete without a national championship.

Clark is great. She is greatness incarnate. Title or no title.