Caitlin Clark’s rookie season in the WNBA got off to a slow start, but she’s now found her rhythm and is playing the type of exciting basketball fans expected from her after making the transition from Iowa to the Indiana Fever.
Clark, who set a league record for most assists in her rookie year in last Sunday’s win over the Storm, has led the Fever to four wins in her last five games and has the team peaking at the right time of the season. She’s averaging 17.3 points, 8.3 assists (a league-high) and 5.8 rebounds in 28 games.
Her success has fans thinking back to some comments made by UConn’s Geno Auriemma in June. The legendary coach criticized various aspects of Clark’s game and also criticized the intellect of some of her fans during an appearance at Dan Patrick Show.
“The delusional fan base that follows her disrespected the WNBA players by saying she was going to go into the league and tear it apart,” Auriemma said in June. “There were actually odds that she was third or fourth in the betting odds for the WNBA MVP. These people are so disrespectful and so ignorant and so stupid that they are giving women’s basketball a bad name. So the kid was doomed from the start.”
He also said that she was not built for the physical demands of the WNBA and needed to play on a better team:
“She’s just not built for the physicality of this league. And she’s not quick enough to get away from the physicality,” he said. “So there’s a steep learning curve, like Diana (Taurasi) said. And if she can do it, she has outstanding skills that will really help her. But she needs to be on a better team and have more experience, and that will come.”
Here is the clip that is going viral again on social media this week:
“The delusional fan base that follows her respected the #WNBA players by saying she’s going to go into this league and tear it to pieces…The kid was doomed from the start.”
-Geno Auriemma talks about Caitlin Clark pic.twitter.com/HkBwKuVS4E
— Dan Patrick Show (@dpshow) June 6, 2024
The fans didn’t hold back with Auriemma:
I knew those comments wouldn’t go over well when he made them. It was a huge mistake to overlook them in recruiting and allow Iowa to work with the bluebloods. https://t.co/cYAtXn8znV
— Anne (@docboogie) 22 August 2024
Geno Auriemma said Caitlin Clark’s fan base was “delusional” because we said CC would “tear the W apart” and we gave her the third or fourth best odds to win MVP.
Well, CC is dismantling the W and has the second best chance to be MVP. https://t.co/HUB3dl51eP pic.twitter.com/9TQroD0s4U— ¢мιℓ (@CMil1012) 22 August 2024
Didn’t recruit her!!
Got kicked out last year by her team and her delusional fanbase.
Shows his bias against him.
It also shows that players win. Unless you have a monopoly, you have to actually coach. Because coaches only lose games… one win.
He will never be dominant again https://t.co/UBG2LDlyy5— Justin Northrop (@IowaHawkFan85) 22 August 2024
This definitely hasn’t aged well lol, she’s got better stats than Diana right now, she’s in the conversation for MVP, it seems more like someone here is mad that they lost to her in the final 4 https://t.co/f5n4xCDWZc
— SnapZ / Lathanuel (@ohsnapitysnapz) 22 August 2024
“She’s on the wrong team”
After a start that saw them play 11 games in 19 days (4 of them against top-2 teams), they have since gone 11-6 and are 5-0 in their last 5 games against teams with a record over .500. pic.twitter.com/6kTtu0u147
— Clark Report (@CClarkReport) 22 August 2024
Clark and the Fever are back in action Saturday night when they face the Lynx in Minnesota.
