Caitlin Clark and Iowa vs. Holy Cross live updates: March Madness predictions, start time, schedule for NCAA Women’s Tournament

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Eighty-four-year-old Roberta Burkholder, her white parka zipped to her neck, stands alongside her 81-year-old husband, Orval. She arrived here, at the back doors of Indiana University’s Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, around 7 am It’s now pushing 5:30 in the evening. To their left are Trenton Kemp and his 13-year-old son, Maguire. They flew into town two days prior from Boise, Idaho, and planted at this particular spot around 6:30. Another gentleman, Josh Kennedy, flew in from Norman, Okla., before parking here before dawn.

Chris Coats, a kindly white-haired gentleman dressed head-to-toe in Hoosier gear, came comparatively late, around 8 am, but has since become the de facto mayor of this pop-up community. He knows everyone’s backstories, if not all of their names. The lady behind him, Coats explains, was smart enough to pack chicken salad sandwiches, and that fella over there, the one in the overalls? He bought four pizzas and some Wendy’s and generously shared them with everyone.

This cross-section of Americana — young, old, male, female — forms the head of a line that snakes in all directions; so many people in line a 10-year veteran of the security team at IU prays that they all have a ticket to get in the building. They have gathered here, at the backdoors of a basketball temple in a basketball-fervent state, to get a glimpse of a basketball shooting star.

Caitlin Clark is no longer merely a basketball player. She is an experience, an outrageously talented athlete swaddled in NIL, social media and female empowerment who encapsulates the zeitgeist of college athletics. Clark shoots, literally and figuratively, into March, trailed by young girls who react to her shots like Swifties to a favorite song, by girl dads giddy to find common ground with their daughters, by long-committed women’s hoops fans thrilled to finally get their long overdue attention, by ordinary hoops fans who simply want to see a good player perform, and by curiosity-seekers hoping to get a glimpse of a phenomenon.

For the next few weeks, Clark will captivate this rabid audience who, like those assembled at Indiana last month, will buy tickets or turn on their televisions in search of more than just a basketball game. They are waiting for a show.

“We came for Caitlin Clark,” says Roberta, the octogenarian, as she and Orval get swallowed by the masses when the Assembly Hall doors finally open. “I’ll do anything once.”

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