MINNEAPOLIS -- Iowa women's basketball star Caitlin Clark, who led the nation in scoring last season, knows she has admirers who hope to mimic the deep 3-pointers that have made her go viral and drawn kudos from NBA stars Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant.
But she has a message for young athletes: Don't shoot from the logo and work on fundamentals.
"A lot of people watch Steph Curry," Clark said Tuesday at Big Ten media day at Target Center. "Maybe I'm a bad example for young kids, too."
Clark's flashy ballhandling -- she led the nation with 8.0 assists per game in addition to her 27.0 points last season -- and overall skill set helped her secure first-team Associated Press All-America honors last season, when she led Iowa to the NCAA tournament.
Iowa, a 2-seed, suffered a 64-62 loss to Creighton, a 10-seed, in the second round.
Throughout the season, Clark's highlights attracted the attention of WNBA and NBA stars, including Curry and Durant.
Curry liked a picture on Twitter that showed Clark shrugging her shoulders like Michael Jordan after she'd hit a big shot in a game. Durant, meanwhile, touted her speed advantage on his podcast.
"She's displaying some skill right now, and she's moving fast," Durant said in February. "It looks like everyone on that court is way slower than her when she's getting to her stuff."
Clark said those long-range shots were the byproduct of the time she invests in workouts, not a random development in her game.
"I think it kind of started when I was young," she said. "My dad -- he was my first ever basketball coach -- he wouldn't let me go shoot 3-pointers or shoot far out. Whenever I was in the gym, I had to stay close to the basket and make sure my form was good. Even when I'm in the gym today, I start close and make sure my form is good."
Clark, who had reportedly collected more than seven figures in NIL deals before signing with Nike on Monday, will be one of the faces of college basketball, along with South Carolina star Aliyah Boston and Stanford star Haley Jones, who also inked an NIL deal with Nike. UConn star Paige Bueckers is out for the season with a knee injury.
While the spotlight on her and her team has grown this offseason, Clark said she hasn't changed her approach. But her strength and conditioning program at Iowa has extended her range. She said she wants her young fans to understand the process that contributed to her improvement.
"I think preaching the fundamentals is so important," Clark said. "I think that's such a lost art, whether it's form shooting or even ballhandling. I'm just shocked at the amount of people that really can't handle the ball [or] bring the ball up the court these days. That's such a valuable skill because you never know when you're going to be put in that situation."