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Iowa Hawkeyes star guard Caitlin Clark wasn’t the only women’s college basketball player setting records Thursday night. So was Lauryn Taylor of Division II Francis Marion University.
In just 26 minutes of play, Lauryn Taylor put up a career-high 34 points and grabbed 44 REBOUNDS to set a new NCAA record for all divisions.
Francis Marion center Lauryn Taylor set the NCAA RECORD FOR ALL DIVISIONS with 44 REBOUNDS 😱
📷 @FMUSports pic.twitter.com/1Tc74za7PZ
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) February 16, 2024
Taylor, who stands just 5-feet-11, broke the previous record set four decades ago by Deborah Temple of Delta State, who snagged 40 rebounds against Alabama-Birmingham on Feb. 14, 1983.
“Honestly, in the moment it just felt like another game to me. I was really locked in on winning the game above all else,” Taylor told The Athletic. “But when I was in it, it just felt like I was having fun. It didn’t feel like it was so much of a chore or a task to get to the rebounds, I was just doing what I can do.”
With Caitlin Clark setting her record and Taylor adding hers on the same night, women’s college basketball is gaining more and more eyeballs.
“I feel like it’s evolving in many different ways, from every single level,” said Taylor. “So just keep your eyes on women’s basketball. And it’s not always about scoring, rebounding is cool too.”
Interestingly, while Caitlin Clark passed Kelsey Plum for the NCAA scoring record Thursday night, she still has a few more women ahead of her who aren’t officially recognized by the NCAA. And one of them, Pearl Moore, also played for Francis Marion University.
Moore, who played for FMU from 1975 to 1979, scored an astounding 4,061 career points.
Also ahead of Clark is Kansas great Lynette Woodard, who played in the AIAW (Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women) era that preceded the NCAA governing women’s college sports. She scored 3,649 points from from 1977 to 1981.
Clark, by comparison, now has 3,569 points.
In fact, Clark isn’t even the highest scoring women’s college basketball player playing today.
That honor belongs to Grace Beyer, a fifth-year senior at University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy, a NAIA school in St. Louis, who currently sits at 3,724 points.