Ohio State women’s basketball set an attendance record in its matchup with Caitlin Clark and No. 2 Iowa.
The Buckeyes’ matchup with one of the biggest stars in the history of women’s college basketball drew a crowd of 18,660 people to the Schottenstein Center on Sunday, breaking the previous record of 17,525 fans who attended Ohio State’s home game against Penn State in 2005.
It’s the largest crowd to attend any indoor women’s college basketball game this season.
Fans began lining up to get into the Schottenstein Center well before the doors opened for the game at 10:30 a.m., one-and-a-half hours before tip-off.
The line outside the Schottenstein Center of people waiting to get in to watch Ohio State womens basketball host Iowa and Caitlin Clark today. pic.twitter.com/hITpkUwmo5
— Dan Hope (@Dan_Hope) January 21, 2024
While Ohio State typically closes the upper level of the Schottenstein Center for women’s basketball games, it opened up the entire arena for Sunday’s game and sold out its entire allotment of tickets. Ohio State also sold out its January 2023 home game against Iowa, but only the lower levels were open for that contest, which drew a crowd of 9,955 fans to Value City Arena.
Drawing record crowds wherever she plays is nothing new for Clark, who entered Sunday’s game just 222 points away from breaking the all-time NCAA scoring record. She’s the leading scorer in the entire NCAA this season, averaging 31 points per game – plus 7.2 rebounds and 7.7 assists per game – entering the matchup with Ohio State.
Iowa entered Sunday’s game as the No. 2 team in the country with an 18-1 record while Ohio State entered Sunday ranked 18th in the country with a 14-3 record on the season.
The game is also being televised nationally on NBC, putting a bigger spotlight than usual on the Buckeyes in one of their biggest games of the season.
“You can see that the women's game is growing day by day, so in that aspect, it’s really cool. And then just to be able to have a whole bunch of fans in the Schott, I think that's gonna be really fun for us,” Ohio State guard Celeste Taylor said before the game. “The energy, the crowd, whether that be against us or with us, it's gonna be great to have people watch two great teams go at it.”
Iowa held a 45-43 lead over Ohio State at the end of the first half.
