Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – BJ Mayer has a lot on his mind leading up to the state tournament.

Attempting to determine the top sophomore point guard in the country isn’t one of the things the veteran West High coach has spent a lot of time thinking about over the past week.

Yet by Monday evening Mayer could have a pretty good idea who that player is.

Mayer saw one of the top candidates for that distinction in December when West High played Hopkins (Minnesota) and standout sophomore Paige Bueckers.

He will get a look at another one of the top sophomores in the country Monday when No. 9 West High (16-7) faces Caitlin Clark led West Des Moines Dowling (20-3) at 1:30 p.m. in the opening round of the Class 5A state tournament at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines.

The sixth-ranked sophomore in the country, Bueckers scored 27 points in a 67-48 win over West High.

West High will take its shot against Clark, the top-ranked sophomore in the nation by ESPN Hoops Gurlz, on Monday.

“It’s interesting that Clark is the number one ranked kid in the nation and Bueckers was fifth or sixth,” Mayer said. “I thought ‘man, Clark must be really good in person because Bueckers was really good’”.

A member of the USA 16 and under national team last summer Clark was tabbed as the top recruit in the class of 2020 by ESPN before the season.  

She has been as good as advertised this season for the Maroons.

Clark ranks second in the state in scoring at 27.3 points per game while leading West Des Moines Dowling in rebounds (6.4), assists (3.9) and steals (2.4).

“She is a passing point guard, a shooting point guard, some of the things that she does, when she comes down puts the ball between her legs and hits a step back 3 you just say ‘o.k. good luck’,” Mayer said. “But she is best when she can get to the rim and get some of her teammates involved for easy baskets.”

At 5-foot-11 Clark is a matchup problem and a difficult player to prepare for.

Few players can mimic her height and athletic ability in practice.

West High is hoping its matchup with the 5-foot-10 Bueckers earlier this season comes in handy as it prepares to face Clark.

“They are similar in that they are both like 5-11 and they are point guards which is very different and they can both kind of do everything,” West High junior Emma Koch said. “They can shoot off the drive, they can get into the paint they can shoot 3s so they are pretty similar.”

Clark scored 30 points in a pair of postseason wins for Dowling and had 39 in a 94-89 double overtime loss to Southeast Polk on February 6.

If West High is to return to the state semifinals for the third time in four seasons it will likely need to keep Clark relatively in check.

After facing Bueckers the Women of Troy don’t expect to be shocked by what Clark can do.

“I know she is a great player so it will be fun to see how we match up with her,” West High senior Logan Cook said. “We know she is going to be good but having a little experience with someone like that is going to help.”

Playing against Bueckers gives West High experience with defending a dynamic point guard.

A pair of matchups with City High and the state’s top scorer Ashley Joens have provided West High another diagram of how to deal with an elite scorer.

“When you face those good kids they are going to get their points eventually and so what you can’t is somebody go off for 10 over their average against you,” Mayer said. “That is a little bit of the mentality that we have. If they get theirs and then other people get more than theirs then you are in trouble.

It’s going to be a challenge for our kids but we’ve seen some of those kids and I’m not saying we’ve done great against them but at least we have a little experience.”