Caitlin Clark and Connor McCaffery had history before they dated

Remember how Omar Epps and Sanaa Lathan’s basketball-loving characters fell head over heels for each other in the turn of the century rom-com “Love & Basketball”? Well, in a case of life imitating art, the worlds of the NBA and WNBA have collided romantically on several occasions.

Indeed, among the real-life basketball love stories are former Denver Nugget Jordan Hamilton and New York Liberty’s Betnijah Laney, Team USA gold medalist Napheesa Collier and skills coach Alex Bazzell, and NBA G-League player Devin Cannady and Indiana Fever’s Katie Lou Samuelson. In 2023, basketball phenom Caitlin Clark and her boyfriend, Connor McCaffery — both of whom played for the University of Iowa’s Hawkeyes before leaving for bigger and better things — joined this exclusive club.

So what do we know about this latest sporting power couple? From platonic beginnings and Instagram declarations to on-court rivalries and political persuasions, here’s a look at the pair who appears to be defining the term “basketball relationship goals.”

It doesn’t appear as though the relationship between Caitlin Clark — who entered the University of Iowa in 2020 — and Connor McCaffery — who played on Iowa’s men’s basketball team since 2017 — was a case of love at first sight. In fact, the sporting pair shared the same circles for a while before finally recognizing that they had each already found the one.

The couple first started hanging out due to family ties: Clark first became pals with Connor’s younger brother, Patrick McCaffery, who also played on the Hawkeyes basketball team before transferring to the Butler University Bulldogs in 2024. Plus, she appeared on the brothers’ joint-podcast, “T’d Up with Connor and Patrick,” in 2022 to discuss Iowa sports.

“We were always friends,” Connor explained to the Times Union about how things between him and Clark progressed from platonic to romantic. “Our teams hung out together. We had good relationships with the women’s team and we just eventually started hanging out. Really, at first, it was no different than it had ever been. It was just kind of easy how it all worked out, you know.”