By MONTE DUTTON

Caitlin Clark is great. So is women’s basketball.

But the women’s game and the men’s are not the same.

They may be equally entertaining. Clark may be the greatest women’s player ever, but she and Pete Maravich – or Michael Jordan or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or LeBron James – are not the same.

Maravich got to shoot three-pointers, but he just got two for them. He didn’t get to play as a freshman. He averaged 44.2 points in 83 games at LSU. Clark has averaged (entering Friday night) 27.5 points in 137 games at Iowa. She’s scored more total points than any women’s college basketball player in history.

That’s quite an honor. and it stands on its own considerable merit.

Not everything has to be combined and compared. It’s possible to evaluate athletes based on what they achieve among their peers.

No one compares Eddie Feigner with Sandy Koufax. They were both great.

Feigner fired softballs. In a charity game in 1967, he once struck out Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Brooks Robinson, Roberto Clemente and Harmon Killebrew consecutively.

Sadaharu Oh hit almost 100 more home runs in Japan than Barry Bonds in America.

I wrote most of the above during halftime of the UConn-Iowa game. At the moment, there’s a commercial, which allowed me to take a break from saying, “Come on, Caitlin.”

She’s amazing. She’s just not alone.

You know how she can be compared? She’s as competitive as anyone.

Not only did Furman win its third consecutive men’s tennis match on Friday.

The Paladins won, 6-1, over The Citadel, which it has beaten 58 of 60 times in history.

With the loss, The Citadel drops to 7-19 on the season and 1-5 in conference play.
The Paladins (10-10, 3-1 SoCon) jumped out to the early lead clinching the doubles point following wins at No. 2 and No. 3.

Ben Cahill and Emil Westling topped Ted Bagwell and Teo Cariov in the No. 2 match, 6-2, before Cole Burnam and Alex Han, playing at No. 3, secured the opening point with a 6-3 victory over Lucas Robins and Noah Van Dyke.
Furman followed in singles action by winning five of the six matches.

The Paladins received wins from Elijah Poritzky (No. 1), Thomas Kennedy (No. 2), Westling (No. 3), Walker Allen (No. 4), and Han (No. 6). Playing at No. 3, Westling defeated Sebastian Kamieniecki in straight sets, 6-3, 6-3, with Poritzky adding another straight-set win at No. 1 over Hayden Shoemake, 6-1, 6-2. Allen won, 7-6(2), 6-1, against Van Dyke in the No. 4 contest, and Han rallied in his No. 6 match for a 4-6, 6-0, 6-4 win versus Bagwell. Following a win by the Bulldogs (7-19, 1-5), Kennedy closed out the match at No. 2 with a 1-6, 6-1, 6-4 victory against Cariov.
The Paladins are back in action Monday when they host league-leading East Tennessee State at 5 p.m.

The Furman softball team returns to Southern Conference play this weekend with a three-game series versus the Mercer Bears at Sikes Field in Macon, Ga.

Game one of the series is set for 2 p.m. on Saturday with the second game slated to begin 30 minutes after the conclusion of the series opener. The series finale is scheduled for 1 p.m. on Sunday.

The Paladins (18-18, 3-3 SoCon) currently hold fourth place in the league standings with Chattanooga and UNC Greensboro tied for first with perfect 6-0 conference records and Mercer is in third place at 4-2. This weekend’s series will cap a nine-game road trip for the Paladins who are slated to play nine of their final 12 SoCon games at home.

After suffering a three-game sweep at the hands of UNC Greensboro last weekend in Greensboro, N.C., Furman rebounded in a big way with a 4-3 victory over 17^th-ranked Clemson on Tuesday night at McWhorter Stadium in Clemson.

Mercer (15-19, 4-2) took two of three at Western Carolina last weekend before dropping an 8-1 decision at No. 5 Georgia on Wednesday night. The Bears hold a 26-21 lead in the all-time series versus Furman and took two-of-three last season in Greenville.

Sierra Bower is SoCon Outdoor Track Athlete of the Month for March.

A junior from Carbondale, Colo., Bower posted a personal-best time of 4:26.42 to take third place in the 1,500 meters at the Bob Davidson Team Challenge in High Point, N.C., on March 22.  The following week, she PRed with a time of 16:03.89 in the 5,000  at the Raleigh Relays, hosted by N.C. State. Bower leads the SoCon in the women’s 5,000  and ranks 15th in the East Region and 36th nationally in the event.

Anna Morgan is Women’s Golfer of the Month in the SoCon.

A senior from Spartanburg, Morgan shot 7-under par for the month, accumulating a 71.22 stroke average over nine rounds.

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