By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

IOWA CITY — There was going to be a logo three because of course there was going to be a logo three.

Forget that it was 53 degrees and the wind swirling through the north end zone at Kinnick Stadium was already playing havoc with 3-pointers and free throws.

Caitlin Clark was going to shoot a deep 3-pointer, because 55,206 fans showed up to see her do that and oh, by the way, be a part of history.

So, early in the second quarter of Sunday’s “Crossover at Kinnick” exhibition game against DePaul, Clark, the Iowa senior guard, sailed in a deep 3-pointer from the left side, then turned around and put up her hands as if to say, “See…”

They came to Kinnick to see the show, see Clark and the Iowa women’s basketball team in their first on-court appearance against an NCAA Division I team since that national championship loss to LSU last April, and set the record for the largest single-game crowd in women’s basketball history.

So, of course, all Clark did in the 94-72 win over the Blue Demons was go out and put up a triple-double — 34 points, 11 rebounds, and 10 assists.

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends…

The ringmaster for all of this was Iowa coach Lisa Bluder, who, after seeing more than 9,000 fans show up on the university’s Pentacrest on campus for a celebration of the Hawkeyes after last season’s Final Four run, wondered aloud about doing an outdoor game at Kinnick.

The fact that it didn’t take long for Iowa to sell out the home schedule for this season made the decision to play this game quite easy.

And there’s the star, Clark, the reigning national player of the year.

“I mean, Caitlin sells a lot of tickets,” Bluder said. “There’s no doubt about that. Right? I mean, she’s just such a fun player to watch.”

Kinnick Stadium, the home to Iowa’s football team, seats 69,250, and filling that was going to be difficult. Logistically, too, it didn’t make sense for a sellout — there would be some seats that wouldn’t offer any sight lines to the court.

Iowa came close, though, to filling every available seat. In the process, the new record was set, almost double the mark set in the 2002 NCAA Final Four championship game, when 29,619 showed up at the Alamodome in San Antonio.

Clark’s career with the Hawkeyes has been about setting milestones, and the Hawkeyes are happy to be along for that ride.

Kinnick was big enough for her star power, the biggest playground for a player who has wanted a big stage ever since she was a child.

Clark told the story of how she begged her father to extend the driveway to her family’s house, to give her more room to shoot.

“He finally did,” Clark said.

That surface was her first playground, and she wanted to make it look right.

“I took some spray paint, and spray-painted all across the driveway, which I don’t think he loved because it stayed there for quite some time,” Clark said, smiling.

Clark would shoot on that driveway every day before school — “I was out in the driveway playing basketball — that’s just what I love to do. When it was cold weather, when was hot, whether I was in my winter coat, whether I was sweating bullets — I probably went to school and smelled — I just loved basketball.”

Finally, Clark said, her dad expanded the driveway so she could have a 3-point arc.

“I probably wouldn’t be a good shooter if he didn’t do that,” she said.

Oh, she’s a good shooter now. The driveway has been replaced by the biggest arenas in the Big Ten, the ones that always get a few more fans in the seats when Clark and the Hawkeyes roll into town.

Clark knew Kinnick Stadium would seem cavernous, with deep shooting backgrounds that can bother even the best shooter. Throw in the wind and temperatures, and Clark was predicting that she would have a few airballs.

And so she did — a free throw in the second half that hit nothing.

“Yeah, it was a little windy,” Clark said. “The cold was perfectly fine. Like, it was a bit chilly. I am thankful we play an indoor sport. The wind, for sure — I promise. I’ll never airball again a free throw. But yeah, the wind took it on that one.”

Still, she wasn’t going to be stopped from a logo three. At least one long one had to go in, so she shot, and made it.

“I mean, how much fun is that? Right?” Bluder said. “You know, she’s such an electrifying player. And it’s just, what can she not do? I mean, she has a triple-double outside in a football stadium.

“She’s a special player.”

“It was kind of a throwback to my younger days ,and I was out in the driveway or at a park with my brothers,” Clark said. “But it was fun.

“It was once-in-a-lifetime event.”

Once-in-a-lifetime events call for once-in-a-lifetime players, the ones who can turn any playground, from a driveway to a football stadium, and make it their own.

Photo: Caitlin Clark shoots in Kinnick Stadium during Sunday’s “Crossover at Kinnick” event. (Stephen Mally/hawkeyesports.com)