Caitlin Clark, Paige Bueckers and an epic Final Four clash - ESPN

CLEVELAND — Before Friday's Final Four showdown, before both players had even made a national semifinal or won a player of the year award, Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers first faced off at the college level in a game that seems like a lifetime ago.

It was March 2021, and the NCAA tournament was played in a «bubble,» the tail end of a season marred by the COVID-19 pandemic. The women's tournament hadn't yet surged in popularity, and couldn't even use March Madness branding.

Bueckers and Clark were just freshmen but were already two of the biggest names in the sport, the former on her way to being the consensus national player of the year. Meeting in a highly anticipated Sweet 16 matchup in front of a few thousand fans at the Alamodome, Bueckers' top-ranked UConn Huskies knocked off Clark's No. 5 seed Iowa Hawkeyes 92-72, though neither was the game's leading scorer.

«Honestly, that game is super blurry,» Clark said Thursday. «I saw some old footage of that game and we both look really, really young.»

Their paths diverged from there. Bueckers was sidelined most of the past two seasons because of injury, while Clark led Iowa to its first Final Four in 30 years, sweeping player of the year awards and emerging at the forefront of women's college basketball's recent explosion.

Now, with both two wins away from the NCAA title that has eluded them, their careers converge one final time on the collegiate stage. When the season is over, Clark will move on to the WNBA while Bueckers returns to Storrs for another season. And although they have repeatedly emphasized that Friday's national semifinal (9 p.m. ET, ESPN/ESPN App) is Iowa vs. UConn and not an individual showdown, it seems fitting that the stars meet again in this moment