Part II of a deep dive into Bridget Carleton’s 41-point game.
A single game of basketball, with timeouts, is more or less 2 hours long, but there’s always so much more time, effort and energy involved to make the event truly special. In Part II of this three-part profile, we take a deep dive into Bridget Carleton’s 41-point game on Jan. 17, 2024, between Serco UNI Győr and KGHM BC Polkowice, to show what needed to happen for a Canadian woman to make European basketball history.
In a moment the sensation subsided, she relaxed and smiled.
Carleton’s dad is laid back and her mom taught her early on in high school how to keep a level head and stay grounded, even when she’s playing at an incredible level. The thing is to never get too high on yourself, but also to not allow self-doubt to creep in. She opened the game with solid shooting and staying grounded was her way of remaining in the zone.
That’s exactly the mindset she returned to when she missed her next shot, a stepback 3. Polkowice put their best defender, Brittney Sykes, on her for a brief period. The Washington Mystics guard played college ball at Syracuse and was drafted No. 7 overall in the 2017 WNBA Draft. She has led the WNBA in steals twice and made the WNBA All-Defensive Team twice. When it comes to defending the ball, Sykes is WNBA royalty.
Soon, Carleton went to the bench. She returned to action in the second quarter. In her first play back, with Győr on the fastbreak, Polkowice had no time to organize their defense, so Carleton easily ran off a screen and scored from 3. She continued to score and stretch the floor. In the second quarter she had 17 points, 22 in total. Yet, she still didn’t feel that she was on the verge of having one of the best games of her career. While she loved to practice shooting when she was younger, in college she focused on other aspects of the game and became one of the most versatile players in the NCAA.
Says Iowa State head coach Bill Fennelly:
Bridget grew in every area during her time with us at Iowa State. We knew she wanted to play for Team Canada so we worked hard with them to help her make that happen, as well as become a WNBA player. As a player, she got stronger and more confident in all areas of game. She was the leader, she was willing to do whatever was needed to help her team win—that is why she was also Big 12 Player of the Year.
Bridget Carleton is the 2019 Big 12 Player of the Year!
She becomes the first Cyclone in school history to receive the league’s highest honor. #MadeForThis #IowaStateWay pic.twitter.com/UjVnzUzbc2
— Cyclone Basketball (@CycloneWBB) March 6, 2019
Carleton earned that distinction in 2019, the first Iowa State Cyclone to do so. Accepting the award, she showed her signature humility, which endears people to her wherever she goes. “She’s awesome,” says her agent, Ticha Penicheiro. If the name sounds familiar, it’s the same Penicheiro who led the WNBA in assists seven times and was voted to the WNBA 15-, 20- and 25-year anniversary teams.
Sitting at the podium next to Fennelly in 2019 and asked to comment on the award, Carleton said:
When I heard that, I was surprised—very surprised—that no one has won this award from Iowa State—just because there have been so many great players and winning teams—teams that have won the Big 12 Tournament, teams that have won the regular season.
Tonya Burns, Jayme Olson, Megan Taylor and Angie Welle are the four former Cyclones whose numbers have been retired by the university. Burns set or tied 33 school records upon her graduation in 1985. Olson led the school to its first two NCAA appearances under Fennelly. Taylor was the only player in Cyclones’ history to be selected Big 12 Freshman of the Year and was named Iowa State Female Athlete of the Year in 2001. A year later, that honor was bestowed upon Welle, the first player in school history to average more than 20 points per game in a season.
And yet none of these players had a season similar to Carleton’s 2018-19. In her senior year, she averaged 21.7 points, 8.6 rebounds, 4.0 assists, 2.3 steals and 1.2 blocks per game. Her number should be retired soon. “Her confidence allows her to be bold on offense and her defense makes her a solid two-way player,” says Swish Appeal’s own Chelsea Leite.
Carleton came out after the break still somewhat skeptical about how special this evening was. During the first play, she set herself free from Brianna Fraser, faked setting a screen, stepped behind the 3-point line, got the pass and released the shot from long-distance.
Swish.
After the game, she explained:
Honestly, I didn’t have the best warmup shooting-wise. So after I hit that first shot, I was able to relax a little. I got really good looks in the first half that I expect myself to knock down, but I knew I was feeling really good when I hit the first shot after half time. I knew it was going to be a good day after that.
It was her sixth EuroLeague Women game of the season. In prior contests, she averaged 13.8 points and 6.6 rebounds. Her team lost all those games, but she was still happy about playing in Hungary and living in Győr. Previously, she played in Australia, France, Israel and Spain. “I love playing in the EuroLeague and I was excited to experience playing in the Hungarian domestic league. Life has been good,” she says. “Győr is a cute, small city located an hour from both Budapest and Vienna, which has been incredible to be a tourist in some amazing European cities.”
Part III of “A night in Győr: Bridget Carleton makes history” will be published tomorrow.
