Fans of Iowa’s great basketball player Caitlin Clark were well-represented in the downtown crowds for the women’s basketball tournament at Target Centre.
Eliona and Eliza Sefogah awoke on Friday morning, expecting to go to school. Instead, their mother informed them that they were going to downtown Minneapolis to watch Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes play Penn State in the NCAA Big Ten Women’s Basketball Tournament.
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“We decided to do it for the tournament and just hand them out,” Reagan told reporters. “I was born a Hawkeye, and I’ll always be a Hawkeye.”
By 4:30 p.m., the queue of fans waiting to enter Target Centre had stretched an estimated half-mile across five blocks of the Minneapolis skyway.
Diehard Hawkeyes emphasised that they support all players, not only Clark, the NCAA’s all-time top scorer. But the talented guard has built a fan base unlike any other in women’s college basketball. For the first time in history, the Big Ten women’s tournament sold out.
ou serious?'” said Leslie Sefogah of Plymouth, as she waited in line amid a building crowd of fans in a downtown skyway with her 10- and 8-year-old daughters and her own mother — a Hawkeyes season ticket holder — hours before the late afternoon game at Target Centre.
Sefogah said she put two Clark No. 22 T-shirts on her girls’ beds to let them know they were in for a surprise. They were surprised, she said: “We’ve been watching them all season on TV, and it’s different to see them in person.”
Waiting fans put up lawn chairs in the skyway to play cards and give out friendship bracelets. Reagan Cross, 12, said he fashioned 311 bracelets for the tournament, stringing yellow and black beads with basketball charms spelling out “Iowa,” “Hawkeyes,” and the names of every player and coach on his family’s favourite team. Jodi and Matt Cross of Pella, Iowa, assisted their son in making friendship bracelets, a popular craze inspired by a Taylor Swift song.
