Ian Clark: Seizing the Moment

The theme of this playoff run for Melbourne United has been around ‘moments’ and winning the moments that matter. Ian Clark, now in his second season with United, has had himself some moments of late.

He had a moment and then some on Tuesday night in the series-deciding third game of their Playoff series against Perth. Clark poured in a career-high 38 points in 30 minutes on 14/19 shooting, including 6/9 three-pointers. He went toe-to-toe with Bryce Cotton (33 points) to help Melbourne advance to its second straight Championship Series.

But he also had a different kind of moment recently. During the February FIBA break, he travelled back to Nashville in the United States where his alma mater, Belmont University, retired his No. 21 jersey. It was just the third time in school history that Belmont has retired a player’s jersey and Clark is incredibly proud of that.

“It was an honour, honestly,” Clark told NBL Media.

“You know, you don’t go into your freshman year of college saying that I want to get my jersey retired. You just try to do the best you can and be the best player and the best teammate you can be, and win.

“And hopefully everything turns out how you want it to. I’m just blessed and thankful for the school to honour me in that way ... and to share that moment with my family and friends felt good.”

He was also grateful that he was afforded that opportunity in-season by United, especially as they were preparing for their must-win Playoff series at the time.

“I told the guys and the coaching staff here in Melbourne and Nick Truelson too when I got back that I appreciate them being so supportive of me going back,” he said.

“Cos it could easily have just been like ‘let’s lock in and get ready for the playoffs’, but they understood the moment and just allowed me to go back and be with my family to have that moment, so I’m forever grateful to them for that.”

Forever 21.@IanClark #ItsBruinTime pic.twitter.com/TacVitSUt9

— Belmont Basketball (@BelmontMBB) February 20, 2025

It speaks to the relationship that Clark has forged with Melbourne’s management and coaching staff, which takes us back to last off-season.

Coming off Sixth Man of the Year honours and a near championship with Melbourne, it was clearly a good fit, and when Clark met with Dean Vickerman and Truelson in Las Vegas at NBA Summer League, it didn’t take long to get a deal done for NBL25.

“I knew I was coming back,” Clark said.

“I wanted to come back. You don’t want to harp on last year too much, but you also have the itch as a competitor to say you have a little unfinished business.

“And so, coming as close as we did last year, I wanted to make sure that we came back and gave ourselves another chance and here we are.”

It’s been evident all season that it continues to be a good fit between Clark and United. While the team had some ups and downs, Clark’s production, aside from a slight dip in his shooting percentages, has been nearly identical to last season.

He feels comfortable in his role, whether starting or coming off the bench, and credits Vickerman for giving every player clarity on their role and what the team needs from them.

“I think that’s one of the great things about being able to come back to a team a second year, is that I know everybody, I’m comfortable, I don’t need to get to know the offence or our schemes or what we’re doing or what our goal is,” he said.

 “That makes me way more comfortable when I’m out there on the floor.”

When the post-season began, Clark added a healthy dose of determination to that comfort level. Having been to the brink of a championship last season but falling short, he entered the series against Perth with the look of a player on a mission.

In Game 1, he poured in 16 of his 22 points in the second quarter as Chris Goulding had to sit for an extended period with foul trouble. He was solid in game two with 13 points – right on his season average. Then he erupted in Game 3.

There were aspects to this series that made it fun for Clark, aside from his own play. One of those was going to battle against his good friend and Belmont alum, Dylan Windler.

They had only played against each other once previously this season, but both managed to have huge impacts on the series, with Windler almost single-handedly responsible for Perth’s huge comeback in Game 2.

“It was awesome,” he admitted.

“Dylan’s my brother. Although I didn’t play with him at Belmont, when I used to go back and he was in his junior year and senior year, I would come back and play against those guys in the summertime, play open runs with him. And we had the same trainers where we would lift and workout together in Nashville. So, I was really happy to compete against him.

“Obviously, I know what kind of player he is, how dynamic he is and being able to stretch the floor and shoot the ball as well as he can. So, it was fun. I wish we could have more match ups. He’s not going to show up and cut me any slack and I’m not going to do it to him either.

“So, it was a great time. I’m glad we pulled it out though cos he had a big game two, so I had to come back and one-up him a little bit.”

Ian Clark is on fire 🔥

Watch live on ESPN 📺 pic.twitter.com/nA66HZHLrF

— NBL (@NBL) March 4, 2025

And one-up him he did. In his career-high performance in Game 3, Clark took on the challenge of going against Cotton on both ends. Melbourne defends Cotton as well as any team in the league, but Cotton got off early on Tuesday.

Clark then came into the game with a ‘hold my beer’ mentality and started going toe-to-toe with the MVP. At the end of the first quarter, Cotton had 16 points, but Clark had 10 of his own. He really enjoys the challenge of trying to find an advantage on both ends of the floor against someone of Cotton’s calibre.

“It’s fun,” said Clark.

“It’s one of the most fun games that I’ve been a part of in my career. Not of the simple fact that I was making shots, but I think the high intensity of the game; there was a lot of shot making on both ends. That’s the kind of game that you dream about being in as a kid.

“It’s very, very high level, it’s win or go home, so do or die stakes and you want to come out and have your best performance. And I think Bryce has had many of those performances here in the NBL over the course of his career and we all knew that he was going to rise to the occasion and come out and give everything he’s got.

“So, you want to be able to match that as much as possible offensively, and defensively, try to slow him down. For me personally, it was a fun game to be a part of.”

Vickerman praised Clark’s defence as much as his offence, talking about the ‘all-round game’ he gave them. He was the next man up to be the primary defender on Cotton after Shea Ili all series and was a big part of how Melbourne was able to contain the MVP so well in the first two games especially.

It’s an aspect of Clark’s game that does not get talked about nearly enough, often overshadowed by his offensive talent, and by playing alongside the defensive player of the year in Ili and another elite defender in Matthew Dellavedova.

“I don’t look at it from a credit standpoint. I just look at it like I’m a competitor. And, I take pride on both ends of the floor, especially defensively because if the other team can’t score, they can’t win. I’ve been taught that since I was a kid in middle school,” Clark said.

“Like I said, I just take pride on that end, not letting my man score and making it really, really difficult. And it’s guys like Bryce where you’re not going to stop him, you just want to make it really difficult. And so, I’m glad that my coaches trust me to put me on him.”

His offensive talent is elite and we saw that on full display on Tuesday. Clark got going quickly and never really stopped. He found his rhythm, his teammates saw that, and he started hunting shots.

Any basketball player who can shoot, knows that when you get in a zone like that, there are not many better feelings on the court. That’s how Clark felt on Tuesday.

“When you get in those kind of zones, you’re not looking at the score, you’re not worried about the possession before, you’re not worried about what’s coming after, you’re kind of just in the moment,” he explained.

“And for me, it was my teammates and the coaches telling me ‘Stay aggressive’. Even Chris (Goulding). Chris was the biggest guy in my ear all series, but especially last game, just telling me ‘Don’t let up, just keep going, keep being aggressive, keep being who you are.’

“And, when you have that kind of confidence coming from your captain, coming from a guy that you know can also get hot, which he did as well in the fourth quarter, it just makes us that more dynamic and hard to stop.

“So, I wanted to leave everything out on the floor. I didn’t want to come back and be like ‘Oh I should have done this or should have done that.’ I just wanted to go out there and play basketball but have fun doing it. That’s it. Shots were falling and I was going to keep shooting them.”

But setting a career-high at this stage of his career? Clark turned 34 on Friday, but it seems like he might still be getting better as a player. The same could be said for teammate Goulding who continues to play at an elite level and Clark sees no reason why that shouldn’t be the case.

Ian Clark not only dropped a NBL career-high 38 points, but he also surpassed his NBA career-high of 36 points 😮 pic.twitter.com/CGRAAwrid1

— NBL (@NBL) March 5, 2025

“Man, we’re trying to [get better]. That’s what you want,” he said.

“Barring any really bad injuries, the mindset of myself, Chris, Delly, all of the older guys, is that if you can continue to add something to your game the next year or the next season, it only helps.

“You know I’m not going to go out and next year come back doing 360 windmills or anything like that, but if I can tidy up little lulls, where I don’t have a dip, or I add something to my game that makes me that much harder to guard, I think it adds to your repertoire and helps you as a player individually.”

Clark knows he’s part of a special group. The backcourt foursome including Goulding, Dellavedova and Ili is an elite mix of playmaking, defence, shot making and high basketball IQ. It’s part of the reason he re-signed for NBL25.

And while he was once part of one of the best backcourts in the world at the time with the Splash Brothers (Steph Curry and Klay Thompson) along with Shaun Livingston on the 2016/17 Golden State Warriors, this group that he’s part of now just knows how to play with each other.

“I think we’re very in-sync,” Clark explained.

“I think we are very dynamic when we all are clicking on all cylinders. But I think it’s one of those things too where you’ve got four guys who have played a lot of basketball at a high level. We’re veterans so we’re very solution based, so anything that comes across our table, we try to figure out what’s the best way to conquer it.

“I love playing with those guys. We all bring a certain dynamic that I think fits very, very well together – almost perfectly if you want to say that – as a backcourt. And we’ve been able to be really successful over the last couple of years.”

That experience is something Clark has leaned on this year. He won a championship with the Warriors in 2017 and then won with the Sydney Kings in NBL22.

In the second half of the final game of that series against Tasmania, Clark hit a number of big shots as the Kings went on to win without an injured Jaylen Adams.

And he stepped up again in the series against Perth. Clark averaged around 13 points during the regular season, but scored over 24 points per game in the Perth series.

He shot 60 per cent from the field and 47.4 per cent on threes across those three games. He certainly understands the gravity of the moment as United looks to go one better than last season.

“You don’t want to take for granted the moments that you have to win a championship. Not everybody gets a chance to do it, so when you’re here you want to seize the moment,” said Clark.

“And that’s all I think about sometimes. There was no guarantee when I signed for this year that we were going to get back to this point.

“So, now that we are here, you want to leave it out there and give it everything you’ve got. You want to come out and give the best effort and be the best version of yourself and that’s what I try to do, especially in these moments when it really matters.”

Ian Clark has 16 points in the first half for United 🔥

Catch the action live on ESPN 📺 pic.twitter.com/J41jAFY893

— NBL (@NBL) February 27, 2025

There’s still a sting in this group from how last season ended. Losing game three to Tasmania in that fashion and then being unable to hold a fourth quarter lead in game five is not something you easily forget. This team has not let that define them, but it certainly has fuelled them at times.

And while some of the group is different, the bulk of this roster carries that with them and there is an element of redemption in this quest for a title as they enter the Championship Series.

“It’s not something that we’ve openly talked about as a group,” acknowledged Clark.

“I think everybody knows how they felt last year when we lost that game five. You don’t want to have that feeling again. Like I said before, there’s no guarantee that we would get back to this point, but now that we are here, it’s like what can we do to not feel like last year, to not let it slip away from us.

“[So with] the solution-based type of group that we are and even from this year, from game to game it’s been rocky with injuries and things like that, but we’ve improved from December to now.

And I think you want to be playing your best basketball at this moment, because it’s high stakes and it’s the playoffs. But you also want to see that improvement, because you can see that you’re building towards something.

“And now it’s about how can we get better? How can we go and try to beat the number one seed? It’s how we’re going to take it game by game and not try to look too far ahead or make that redemption happen in game one. We have to do it game by game in the series.”

The Championship Series starts Saturday night in Wollongong. The Hawks took the regular season series 2-1 over Melbourne, so Clark and his teammates know it will not be easy.

For Melbourne, as has been the case for a number of years under Dean Vickerman, if they can defend at a high level, they can stay in any game and Clark said that the pace will be key, as well as which team has the best energy.

“Just slowing them down. They’re so dynamic,” Clark explained.

“They’ve got two All-NBL first team guards and they’ve been playing at a really high level, and they play really hard for coach Tatum. So, being able to match their energy, I think is going to be big, especially in their building.

“I think just trying to match their energy and their pace, because they get up and down and get easy buckets. If we can limit those, I think we’ll put ourselves in a good spot.”

Melbourne wants to win the moments that matter. Last year that didn’t happen, but this season, they seem to have a renewed focus and with Ian Clark playing some of the best basketball of his career, they may just be able to seize enough moments to claim the title.

Watch Game 1 of the Hungry Jack's NBL25 Championship Series, live on ESPN this Saturday night from 8pm AEDT.