NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Caitlin Clark’s climb to the top of college basketball’s division one all-time scoring chart this winter has brought a former Lipscomb All-American back into the conversation.
Clark is the Iowa sensation leading no. 1 seed Hawkeyes into a NCAA Tournament second round game Monday night against West Virginia. This winter she broke former Washington star Kelsey Plum’s modern day NCAA women’s basketball scoring record. Then she went on to pass Kansas great Lynette Woodard for the all-time women’s mark before breaking Pistol Pete Maravich’s all-gender division one scoring record.
She is the most popular college basketball player, male or female, in the country and maybe one of the most popular athletes on the planet right now, period. But there is one scoring record Clark will not touch.
The all-time college basketball scoring record for all divisions belongs to John Pierce. A four-time All-American at Lipscomb on Don Meyer’s great NAIA teams of the early 90’s.
“She is so fun to watch,” Pierce said of Clark. “Whether she’s going to pull up or got to the basket or create something for a teammate, she’s an incredible player. Great scorers don’t necessarily think about scoring. They’re just doing it. And they want to try to continue to do it over and over and over again.”
Pierce broke the record previously set by his old roommate and Lipscomb star Phillip Hutcheson. And while he scored more than 4,000 points in his four-year career, but says he never contemplated breaking the scoring record until his senior season.
“My role was to post as hard as I could every single possession, get the ball and turn and score,” Pierce said. “Phillip was the post player before me and I came after he did, and we got to shoot a lot of shots and get a lot of glory. But it’s really the system that should get the credit.”
The record fell on February 23rd, 1994 in a 119-102 win over Cumberland on a layup late in the game.
“I think they went into the game saying, ‘we may lose the game but we don’t want Pierce to break the record in this game,’” Pierce said. “So they had a couple of guys on me and to be honest, I think the referees really wanted me to get it that night because I shot so many free throws. I got it when we ran a secondary break. We threw it to a wing and I post up. If the guy fronts me, they throw it to the top and throw it to the post from there. And it was just like that, they threw it from the top, I made a lay up and that was it.”
Just like we’ve seen this winter with on court celebrations for Clark when she passed Plum and Maravich, the game was stopped and Pierce was presented with the game ball and a commemorative poster honoring his record breaking accomplishment.
“They stopped the game, and actually Phillip came down to give me the game ball,” Pierce said of the moment. “I took the ball and my dad was sitting in sort of the front of the balcony section and I tossed it to my dad in the balcony. It was kind of neat moment for our family, but in my mind I was just kind of ready to get back to the game.”
Pierce repeated as NAIA National Player of the Year in 1994 and went on to play professionally in Japan, France and Australia.
Thirty years later he’s coaching and teaching Bible at Nashville Christian School and watching from afar as Clark’s pursuit of the record has put his own mark back in the public spotlight.
“Kids come in and say, ‘hey coach Pierce, my dad told me something yesterday that can’t be true. Is this true?’” Pierce said. “So I get a lot of that.”
Clark says she will forego her COVID season at Iowa and enter the WNBA Draft this summer, where she is the presumed no. 1 pick of the Indiana Fever.
Her decision means the name John Pierce and 4,230 career points will remain atop the all-college basketball record books for a little while longer.
“I reached out to her and encouraged her to enter the WNBA Draft,” Pierce said with a chuckle. “No, I’m just kidding. I would say records are meant to be broken. It’s been a lot of fun to watch Caitlin. I think (his record will be broken). Do I want someone to do it? Yeah, I think it would be great. I think it would be a lot of fun.”
