Tag: Caitlin Clark

Fever End Of The Road

September 26, 2024 / DB

The first year of the Indiana Fever’s Caitlin Clark era came to an end Wednesday night in an 87–81 loss to Connecticut in the first round of the WNBA playoffs. The Fever had an early lead then fell behind by double-digits multiple times, the last time midway through the fourth quarter, before mounting a furious rally and taking the lead with two minutes to play. Three consecutive Sun 3’s ended the hopes of getting the series back to Indianapolis for a decisive third game.

The game was a microcosm of the entire season. The Fever looked brilliant at times; totally helpless against an older, more experienced foe at others. There were possessions when the Fever struggled to get on the same page, the offense bogging down when the wrong player got the ball and no one moved to help them. However, during the run when they grabbed the lead, they were locked in, making passes before teammates began their cuts and the ball getting to the ideal spot at the ideal instant. For a team with almost no bench depth that required Clark and Kelsey Mitchell to play every minute of a brutally tough game, the Fever did pretty damn good to push the game to its closing seconds.

The other thing from this game that made it a good summation of the entire season: the building was packed, and it felt like half the crowd was cheering for the Fever. It was more like a high school tournament game on a neutral court than a professional playoff game played on one team’s home court over 800 miles away from the road team’s arena.

And there was Caitlin’s performance. She swished her first two long 3’s of the game. She made a few amazing passes. She also had a number of shots fall short during a stretch in the second half when she looked completely gassed. While she had just three turnovers, those were all because she got a little sloppy with the ball. A couple other probable turnovers deflected off the defense and went out of bounds. Teammates couldn’t finish when she set them up perfectly. She bickered with Sun players, the refs, and even the fans. Again, it all summed up her first year in the league.

I don’t think you can give her rookie year anything but an A. She led the league in assists and finished in the top 10 in scoring. Even people who were bullish on her transition to the pro game wouldn’t have expected 19+ points and over eight assists a game. There were rocky moments throughout the season, but she got better as she got more comfortable with both the pro game and her teammates. She handled all that came with being the new face of the league wonderfully. Holly Rowe interviewed her after the first quarter last night, a quarter in which she had jawed with both DeWanna Bonner and the refs, and she smiled and laughed when Rowe called her “spicy.” She’s been great with the media all year, which can’t be easy. The Fever had the highest home and road attendance numbers in the league, and blew away every TV rating number.

Her season was not perfect. She often plays with too much of an attitude. One local writer, appearing on a national podcast, said she plays “like an asshole.” Which he loved, for the record. I thought that was a solid way to label her: I bet she wears everyone out over the course of the game. She came very close to earning a one-game suspension for earning too many technical fouls during the regular season. Honestly she probably deserved that seventh T many times and was fortunate that refs walked away from her. I think she’s too negative when things don’t go her way. She flops a lot on hard contact while she hammers people on the other end. She’s not the first player to do any of that.

My biggest critiques, though, are about her game, and things that will get better the longer she plays. She needs to tighten up her handle a little, as she was picked clean too often by defenders like Connecticut’s Dijonai Carrington. She was never a great defender in college, often playing free safety rather than directly guarding people. She needs to improve her D both to help her teammates and avoid some of the cheap fouls she gets because she’s slow to a spot. She had a tendency to check out momentarily when she was pissed at the refs or herself, forcing her teammates to cover for her. She’ll get stronger which will help every aspect of her game. She just ended a 12-month cycle of nearly non-stop play. She claims she has no plans to either play overseas or in either of the 3-on–3 options available over the next few months, which hopefully means both rest and a chance to work on her body and game outside the rigors of the normal practice-play-repeat cycle of the season.

I have no idea how WNBA free agency and roster building works. Kelsey Mitchell is a free agent and the Fever absolutely need to bring her back. She was a perfect compliment to Clark in the backcourt, a cool, steady counter to Clark’s more fiery game. They also have to find someone who can play both guard spots off the bench, giving Clark and Mitchell the opportunity to sit down without the team falling apart in their absence. Aliyah Boston needs help on the boards, as giving up offensive rebounds was often the biggest factor in their losses and defensive rebounding fueled their attacking game.

There were some other negative aspects to the season, but those came from the outside. Commentators and fans who insisted on making the season a binary Caitlin vs Angel Reese competition until Reese suffered a season-ending injury. The people who used Clark’s presence as a platform to project their own political arguments without considering if she felt the same or asking for her support.

After Wednesday’s game, Sun player Alyssa Thomas called out Fever fans for racist comments on social media. Now, I live in a deeply red state, so I have no doubt a lot of what she was referencing indeed came from people here in Indiana. I’m betting, though, most of them came from people who probably rarely, if ever, watched a WNBA game before this year, have zero interest in the league aside from Clark, and view her as their opening to take shots at people within the league who say things and live their lives the commentators don’t like. The WNBA is filled with intelligent, vocal women who stand up for causes they believe in. A lot of those women are Black. A solid chunk of them are gay. Many of them lean to the political left. What better way to own the woke libs than to tell these people to shut up and dribble while supporting the woman they assume to be white, Christian, conservative savior from Iowa now playing in Indiana?

Of course, other than liking a Taylor Swift post, Clark hasn’t made a peep about politics. She may not care about politics, one of those athletes far more consumed with the game than anything else. Or she may be aware that she has a unique platform and doesn’t want to offend anyone. Or maybe she does have strong feelings one way or the other, but was just overwhelmed by all she had to deal with this year and decided she wasn’t ready to step out onto any political limbs. Look what liking a post did. Can you imagine if she actually expressed an opinion?[1]

That really should be a different post and I’ve already wasted too much time on it.

The big takeaway is that this was a terrific first season in Indiana for Clark. She and the team got much better from May-to-September. Two seasons ago the Fever won five games. This year they won 20. I can’t tell you the last time I willingly watched a WNBA game before this season. I probably watched 30–35 of the Fever’s games this year. I’m excited about the future of the team. Hopefully I find an affordable way to get L and I to a game next season.

I have zero idea what her politics are, but one local blogger pointed that that just as conservatives can assume she’s with them because she’s a white girl from Iowa, there is plenty in her background that suggests she could be liberal. Again, until she actually tells us, we don’t know, and it’s dumb to think we know. ↩

Basketball Notes

June 12, 2024 / DB

Let’s talk basketball for a few minutes.

Kid Hoops

L has been busy with her high school teammates.

They have activities on the calendar four days a week for most of June. Three weight training sessions, one two-hour open gym, then two different nights with two games. She’s also volunteering at the boys camp this week and will work the girls camp in two weeks. And she has three lessons scheduled with a private trainer with four of her travel teammates. We’ve also gone to the Y a few of her off mornings to get shooting time in.

Girl is working.

When the CHS coach sent out the summer rosters two weeks ago, she did so with a clear disclaimer that these were for summer only, they would likely change week-to-week, and we shouldn’t read anything into where girls will end up in the fall.

Still, L is a varsity player for the summer, and she’s started two of their six games. Again, the rotations have been all over the place. When L has started, she’s been on the court with four upperclassmen. In the second halves of the same games she’s been on the court with two other sophomores and two freshmen. The coach is clearly trying to see how different girls work together, how they handle being asked to do more or just fill specific roles, etc.

I’ve enjoyed watching them play through the first two weeks. While we lost our two tallest girls to graduation, and our only girl over 5’8” is a freshman, it seems like we are a lot faster and more athletic than last year. I expect to see more pressure defense, and more defensive adjustments in general compared to last year. The key will be getting girls to shoot. Beyond our two best players, we have a lot of girls who are hesitant to shoot. They need to figure out when you are undersized and fast, if you get an open look you have to take it.

That’s true for L. She doesn’t have the same aggressiveness she had in her last week of travel ball. I know she wants to fit in as a sophomore and run the offense correctly because she doesn’t want to get yelled at. I’ve talked to her about understanding that after the ball has been swung side-to-side, if she gets it back and is open, that’s a good shot her coach will be fine with. She did hit an NBA-range 3 at the end of the first quarter in one of our games Tuesday night. I told her it looked pure and that she needs to relax and shoot like that when she gets the ball in the offense.

She is both very excited about the coming year – she really gets along with the older girls and hangs out with them more than the younger girls – and nervous about where she fits in. She said she’d rather come off the bench and play 10 minutes a game for varsity than play nearly every minute for JV like she did last year.

We talked through the roster one night and I think she’s in a good position to make varsity, but there’s always the chance the coach will want her to play a lot to keep getting better. Or swing between the rosters. It helps her cause that she’s the only true point guard among the bench players, which means she is the best player’s backup. But the offense isn’t really set up for a pure point guard to run the offense, so anyone can bring the ball up and initiate.

We’ve had 11 or 12 girls on the bench for varsity games so far. I’m pretty confident L is in the top 8 or 9, which puts her on the varsity roster for the fall. That’s a long way away, though, and plenty of time for both L to improve her game and solidify a spot or some of her teammates to get better and pass her up.

They play games on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Last week they broke open two close games late for wins, gave up a big lead to get tied late and then won the last two minutes to get the W, and then blew out a small school by 50 points when we basically did not shoot in the fourth quarter.

This Tuesday we got a comfortable win in game one, then came from eight down to beat a team that crushed us in both JV and varsity last season. You can’t put a lot of stock into these games, but that seemed like a big win. Our girls were very excited. One mom of a senior was super pumped, saying this was the first time in her daughter’s four summers that CHS had started 6–0.

That will likely change tomorrow. We play two of the best 4A teams in the state, Lawrence Central and Lawrence North. LC went 30–1 and won state last year, but is playing without most their top players. One of them is on a national team and I think the rest are playing in higher level leagues than the Indianapolis high school summer circuit. LN, who lost to the state champs three times and beat CHS by 32 in sectionals, is playing all their best players. They have one girl who is 6’5”. That should be fun.

CHS is also playing in a showcase over the weekend, four games in two days. This is an open event for recruiting, so there will be college coaches watching. Not sure if that will affect how our coach plays people or not.

Caitlin

Oh Lord, I guess I should have known that Caitlin Clark’s rookie year would turn into a whole thing. Can people just shut up and let the woman play?

I’m hesitant to dive into all of it as the discourse is out of control. Each week seems to bring some new “controversy,” that people tack 50 things that have nothing to do with basketball onto.

It should be no surprise that Clark has struggled in the transition to the WNBA. It’s a higher level of ball than college, and it will take some time for her to figure things out while getting stronger to deal with the higher level of physicality.

People are also forgetting that the Fever were an exceptionally bad team last year. While they drafted Aliyah Boston with the #1 pick in 2023, they still had the worst record in the league. The excitement about the future of the team with a Boston-Clark pairing was appropriate. They weren’t going to turn into a playoff team overnight, though.

Which is clear from watching them. The biggest issue I see is that most of Clark’s teammates have no idea how to play with her. She’ll set the defense up perfectly, zip a ball to a spot, and it goes flying out of bounds because her teammate either didn’t cut or stopped because they didn’t expect her to throw the ball to a wide open spot. So many times she’s made a gorgeous pass only to have it bounce off a Fever player’s hands because they weren’t looking or didn’t trust the ball to get through. Stuff like that will get better with both more time together and, likely, higher level teammates.

There there’s – waves hand at everything – all the other stuff. The physical play and officials looking the other way at some of it. The idiot Indiana congressman who demanded an explanation from the WNBA for why Clark is getting the same treatment pretty much every rookie in every sport has ever received.[1] The Olympic team “snub.” The exhausting, constant discourse in sports media. The assigning of political stances held by outside observers to Clark, her teammates, and her opponents when they’ve never said a word about non-basketball matters.

It’s almost enough that I wonder if Caitlin wishes she had stayed at Iowa for another year. Or taken the Big 3 money and played in a league that no one cares about without all this nonsense.

At the risk of making the mistake others have made by trying to guess what she is thinking, I bet that’s not the case, though. I know she’s pissed that her team sucks. I know she’s frustrated in both her play and that she and her teammates can’t get on the same page. I’m sure she’s sick of getting beaten up every game with defenders often getting away with it. I guarantee she’s disappointed by not making the Olympic team. I’m also 100% sure she understands the logic behind the decision, knowing that roster spot has to earned and not assumed, and will use it as fuel to make sure there’s no way they can leave her off the roster next time.[2]

I don’t know, and don’t care, what she thinks about racial politics, about alleged gay vs straight divide in women’s sports, or anything else that is extraneous to putting the ball through the hoop. In fact, I bet while she has opinions on all of these subjects, her primary focus is getting better, making her team better, and finding a way to win games. She would be perfectly fine being the only straight, white girl, Midwesterner on the team if it meant the Fever made the playoffs.

For some reason the Olympic roster was still a hot topic on ESPN this morning, so I don’t think any of this is going away.

There is no grandstander who grandstands as much as a Republican when they can exploit even the tiniest racial angle in any debate. If it was two white guys involved, I bet this jackass would have applauded their old school toughness. “Nothing given, everything earned!” ↩
Her press conference after she got the news was tremendous. All the idiots screaming about the decision on cable TV could learn a lot from how she handled it. Also, let’s not forget the Olympic tryouts were during the Final Four, so the process seemed stacked against any college player that was playing for the national championship. ↩

Weekend Notes

February 26, 2024 / DB

It was a three-day weekend at CHS. Which was good since L and I started the weekend off early.

Caitlin-palooza

I took L and one of her hoops buddies down to Bloomington Thursday night for the Iowa-Indiana game. This was my first time in Assembly Hall 2003. Our seats were better for that game.

We were UP THERE!

We arrived right when doors opened two hours before tip and found the back of the line, which was roughly half a mile from the arena. Fortunately it was in the low 50s and dry. Things could have been much less pleasant in Indiana in late February! It took us exactly 30 minutes to get inside. By then the only sections of lower level seats that were GA had been taken, so we went into the balcony and grabbed a few.

Assembly Hall is behind those trees somewhere.

Caitlin was already on the court and warming up, 85 minutes before game time according to the official clock.

She must have used up all her shots in pregame because she turned in one of her worst games of the year, going 8–26 from the field and just 3–16 from three. She even missed three-straight free throws at one point. Still she put up 24 points, 10 rebounds, nine assists, exiting the game with a couple minutes left as IU closed out their win. It is crazy this was considered a bad game for her.

IU was ready for their moment. They blew a game to a bad Illinois team last Monday but were 100% focused for the Hawkeyes. They took the lead late in the first quarter and steadily pulled away. The Hoosiers nearly got the lead to 20 a couple times before winning by 17. Local girl – from Fishers, just north of us – Sydney Parrish hit consecutive 3s to push the lead to 17. A third-straight 3 just missed. I’m not sure Assembly Hall would have survived that moment had Parrish connected. IU was fantastic defense and rode a few hot streaks on offense to build their margin.

The game was super chippy, which was awesome. As much as I enjoy Caitlin, I don’t always love some of her antics, which seem unnecessary and over the top. The Hoosier players and coaches weren’t having it. Mackenzie Holmes stared Clark down twice after blocking her shots. A couple other IU players yelled at her when she complained. And Clark got into it with the IU coaches at one point.

Assistant coaches in women’s ball seem way more aggressive than on the men’s side. Both teams had to have assistants held back from going after refs after bad calls.

The crowd was almost as hot as the Hoosiers. It was officially a sellout, although there were scattered empty seats in our area. There were plenty of Iowa folks mixed in but it was still a 98% loud, proud Hoosier crowd. One national writer said the crowd was better for this game than when KU came to B-town in December.[1]

They showed lots of good fan signs on the video board. One student had a white board on which he was tracking Clark’s “Flops” and “Whines,” which was funny. Another kid had a sign showing Clark and a crying baby next to each other. The best was a student who had a sign that showed Iowa coach Lisa Bluder and labeled her as a “D1 Yapper,” which was awesome. I’m going to start using that phrase.

For some reason former Hoosier (and Pacer) Victor Oladipo was there, wearing sunglasses the entire time. He’s getting paid $9 million to do nothing at the moment, so I guess he can roll back to his alma mater for a big game when it suits him.

Fun to get to see the biggest star in the game, hell the biggest star in sports, in person. Who was the last athlete that had people lining up for hours almost every night they played? Also fun to see the Hoosiers, who aren’t quite as good as they were last year, put it all together on the night of their biggest home game of the year.

At halftime L ran down to find one of her travel teammates. They, in turn, met one of our new girls on their team for the coming season. She is 5’10”! She looks athletic. I think she got some varsity time at her 4A school this season. I am intrigued!

Jayhawk Talk

Well that was an almost perfect Saturday for the Jayhawks. The much-hated Texas Longhorns made their final visit to Allen Fieldhouse before leaving for the SEC. KU jumped on them early, had a 20-point lead at halftime, and auto-piloted it a bit to a 19-point win. The starting lineup was balanced and efficient. It might have been the best bench game of the year. KU’s defense looked terrific and the offense was humming. As several national writers said, if you give Bill Self a week to prepare, he’s going to find your weak points.

And, HOLY SHIT NIC TIMBERLAKE!!!!

https://x.com/KUHoops/status/1761568235684573184?s=20

Oh, and the uniforms KU wore were fantastic. I love these updated versions of old uniforms Adidas has been rolling out every year. I prefer the version with red letters a little bit more, but these were nice.

Not all was great for KU, though. That they won without Kevin McCullar, whose knee acted up again, was encouraging. What was not encouraging was Self using the phrase “If Kevin comes back…” four times in his postgame, radio interview.

IF?!?!?! WTF?!?!

I mean, KU might have just played their most complete game of the year, against a talented but flawed team. So that was cool, and a great development for March. But the Jayhawks need McCullar to win NCAA games. And a month before the biggest games start the head coach is talking like he’s not sure McCullers knee will be healed by then.

Terrific.

I don’t call out the KU fans often, but chanting “SEC” at Texas and Oklahoma is dumb. I know it is meant to mock, but if you’re going to chant about conferences, give your own conference some love. Don’t chant what SEC teams chant in big, non-conference games. Or just start the Rock Chalk Chant early and throw the Horns Down when you’re waxing Texas.

Also, KU is 3–0 against SEC teams this year. And 3–0 against teams going to the SEC next year. I still fear some .500 SEC team more than anyone else in the second round of the NCAAs.

Court Stormings

Oh so much hand wringing about Duke’s Kyle Filipowski getting knocked over and apparently injuring his knee when the Wake Forest students rushed the court after beating the Blue Devils Saturday. Seriously, the rest of the day on ESPN every other game seemed secondary as each broadcast team had to weigh in, and each halftime show was devoted to breaking it down, in Zapruder Film like detail.

Hey, it super sucks Filipowski got hurt, and hopefully it is nothing severe or lingering.

But Filipowski isn’t the first person to get injured in a court storm/field rush. It’s just when it happens to a Duke player, who is a potential All American, it becomes the biggest story in the world.

Court storming is great. But, come on, these aren’t new. If you’re playing a Duke, a Kansas, a Kentucky, and your school is either a Little Brother or just not as good, you have to know this is a possibility and be prepared for a court storming. You’re not going to keep all those kids off the court. But you can either delay them, or funnel them to a section of the court giving all the players a chance to get clear and safe before the celebration really kicks off.

Some KU fans made a big deal about how Wake Forest athletic director John Currie was the AD at Kansas State when there were a couple particularly scary court stormings in Manhattan. I’m not sure he’s directly responsible – Wildcats gonna Wildcat when they beat KU – but it is weird that after he was forced to take measures to protect visiting players in Bramlage Coliseum, there didn’t appear to be much in place to avoid bad situations in Winston Salem.

Kid Update

Our big accomplishment for the weekend was C finding a prom dress. She is our procrastinator and it had been a struggle to get her out shopping. But she found a beautiful dress and we’re on schedule to have everything ready for prom in two months.

CHS had elearning on Friday so the school could set up for their big, annual fundraiser. L got her work done early so we went out to get her some new basketball shoes for the travel season. She was hoping to get the Sabrina Ionesco shoes, but they are mega-narrow and she had to settle for some Nike GT Cut 2’s. New hoops shoe time is one of my favorite parts of her basketball calendar. I’ve been known to grab some AAU Dad shoes on the same trip, but I held off this time.

We had a travel parent zoom meeting last night and she starts workouts next weekend. Her team will play for the first time while we are on spring break, but hopefully we make it back in time for her to play the second half of their second tournament. Right now we are scheduled to play in Cincinnati twice and Louisville three times then everything else is 20 minutes from our house.

M got a job leading tours around the UC campus. I talked to her before her interview and she was a little nervous. Then she texted and said the interview lasted five minutes and she got the offer right away. Surprised it took them five minutes to realize she’s like the perfect person to show prospective students and their families around UC. Not sure if she’s led any tours yet but she’s on the call list for helping out when folks need a guide.

You probably don’t follow the IU men, but they are having a rough season. ↩