“I was so blown away by her,” Lindsay Gottlieb said of Caitlin Clark upon their second interaction. CC had been five games into her WNBA  rookie season and was at USC’s Galen Center for practice. After getting through interviews, even though you could see the tiredness on her face, Clark still made time to talk to Gottlieb and her son in a genuine interaction. And the USC head coach couldn’t help but be impressed. In fact, she wanted tips on how to make her own mentee into something that could even closely resemble the Fever rookie.

Caitlin Clark was an NCAA phenom but there were others lined up right behind her to take her place when she graduated. JuJu Watkins was one of them. But Gottlieb, who has seen her fair share of famous players in her career, is known for her hunger to always improve. This time, she wanted CC’s help on how she could help her young Trojans star. “Our administration has reached out to Iowa quite a bit and said, ‘Okay, tell us what we need to know. Some of the things Caitlin dealt with,'” the USC HC told NBC Sports.

“I reached out to Caitlin, said ‘How can I help JuJu deal with this?’ I feel like it’s my job to make sure that I’m using all the resources. But we’re all looking forward to the attention and making sure that we’re ready to embrace it.” When the interviewer asked what advice the Fever guard gave, Gottlieb pointed out one difference that Clark and Watkins’ college careers have.

“First of all, she’s [Caitlin Clark] so gracious. She literally took my phone and said, ‘Here’s my number. Reach out, call me, see how I can help.’ But essentially she said that I had that attention for like a year and a half. JuJu is going to have it for three years,” Gottlieb says.

But the coach knew that Clark was in the middle of a hectic rookie season after four years of a hectic NCAA career. “So I said, let her get through the WNBA season, take a break, and ask her specifically about what she would do the same, what she would do differently. And we’ve talked with their program about everything, from security to autograph to making sure that we maximize this time but keep the main thing the main thing, which is safety in basketball.”

An advocate of letting JuJu “step into her greatness,” all Gottlieb wants is to let the 19-year-old reap the benefits of her talent and hard work, but do it safely. Caitlin Clark and JuJu Watkins are by no means similar players, but their magnetism, as the coach puts it, is undeniable.

Grateful to the Fever rookie for paying it forward, Gottlieb believes she lucked out with CC. And yet, the 47-year-old believes the league does not begin or end with her either.

Lindsay Gottlieb says Caitlin Clark is not “the only exciting player”

Caitlin Clark has broken viewership records in her rookie WNBA season after already doing it in the NCAA. But while Lindsay Gottlieb fully acknowledges the Rookie of the Year, she knows women’s basketball has more potential. And in fact, more opportunity to showcase that potential with the momentum that the point guard has set in place.

“It’s continuing to put these young women on TV on major networks during major time slots,” Gottlieb told On3, discussing how men’s basketball often gets the prime spots. “Caitlin’s phenomenal, right? She has this unique, captivating nature – the way that Steph (Curry) does. But she’s not the first, nor the only exciting player.”

“We’ve had them for years, and so now to say, OK, this is a newfound set of eyeballs, let’s continue to put the marketing dollars in and the good time slots. Keep giving women’s basketball a chance and it will excel.”

It’s star power that has to put something into motion but if you look at the sport, whether the W or college basketball, there is more than enough talent to propel the movement forward. Caitlin Clark started something that JuJu Watkins will carry forward, yes, but so will so many others.