INDIANAPOLIS — While driving to the arena Thursday afternoon, Caitlin Clark looked out her window and saw her impact on the sidewalks of downtown Indianapolis. Kids strolling in No. 22 shirts, adults tagging along in Indiana Fever gear. “You can just feel the buzz around this team,” she would say later. “You look around and soak it in. You really can’t script it any better.”
Well, the ending could have been more pleasant. Something other than a 102-66 shellacking by the New York Liberty on a night the large audience was a good deal louder than Clark’s stat line. This was not a college supernova shooting across the sky but a WNBA rookie in the first stages of growing pains. She didn’t even score 10 points. There were 26 Division I women's college basketball contests canceled or postponed by the pandemic the last time Caitlin Clark didn’t score 10 points in a game. But back to that in a moment.
THE AFTERMATH: What Caitlin Clark said after her last game at Iowa
It was the first official WNBA home game of Clark’s life, and back in Iowa, they were surely watching. Wonder if anyone was recalling Nov. 25, 2020?
She was a little confused that night. It was her first home game as a Hawkeye freshman and when they introduced the starting lineups, she wasn’t sure she had heard her name correctly and hesitated before going onto the floor. Kind of killed the flow of the moment, you know?. “That’s OK, it was my first time,” she said after that game. “I’ll learn.” There wasn’t much cheering for her anyway. The announced crowd was 365. COVID, remember?
Making her debut before thousands of empty seats and in considerable quiet, she scored 27 points with eight rebounds and four assists as Iowa beat Northern Iowa 96-81. The Caitlin Clark Age had dawned. “It feels like I just began my college career but at the same time it feels like forever ago,” she said Thursday night, 90 minutes before her first regular season home tipoff for the Fever. “I think it almost played to my advantage that I was getting to play in front of nobody. You don’t have that added pressure of the environment and the crowd that you’re trying to navigate as well as navigate the game.”
Time flies, hey? Four years later, a virus no longer keeps the gates closed, the house was packed Thursday night, and Clark took the court right on cue when the Indiana lineup was announced to a thunderous roar and flames shooting out above the backboards. She likened her emotions to the 2020 debut in Carver-Hawkeye Arena. “Just the excitement of getting to play in your home arena for the very first time, first WNBA home game,” she said. “That’s only something you’re going to do one time.”
Many things have happened since that November day. Records set, history made, a national tidal wave of attention created. Her coach, Lisa Bluder, just retired and was in Gainbridge Fieldhouse Thursday night with Jan Jensen, the woman who will replace her. Clark is a Hawkeye legend emeritus, but now there are professional promises to keep. The arc from freshman unveiling to No. 1 draft pick has been a dizzying journey, and Thursday night showed just how remarkable this phenomenon has become, but also how difficult and different the road will be now.
On Nov. 25, 2020, she was a newcomer to the stage, a home state girl from West Des Moines. “She is what we expected,” Bluder said after that game. “We had been hoping for this day for a long time, that we would actually get to coach her, so it was fun to have that happen.”
Flash ahead to Thursday night. My, how that freshman’s world has changed. Her first game in Iowa City did not come with fans lining up two hours early, or tickets on StubHub priced at $438. It did not come with extra security being called to the team merchandise store to help with the massive crowd trying to buy Caitlin Clark hoodies for $85 and Caitlin Clark T-shirts for $40 and Caitlin Clark caps for $35. It certainly did not come with $15 margaritas at the concession stand.
Nor did it come with Clark meeting the media not once but twice before the game; morning shootaround and pre-game. “It’s crazy. I love you guys but we need to cut that back,” she said Thursday. Indeed, the marketing of Clark is very much a work in progress, lest she be drained by a daily marathon of questions. “This is such a new thing. I mean, there’s never been this many people in this interview room,” Fever coach Christie Sides said before the game. “We’re all kind of trying to figure it out ourselves.”
The balance Clark must strike between on the court and off will be a significant part of her rookie development, too. If the performance does not answer expectations, those press sessions will not be so fun. "This is my job. It is my responsibility,” she said of basketball. And the relentless media exposure? “I think it’s just something you accept. It comes with it for every single player. I feel like you know everything about my life at this point. I don’t know what more there is to say. For me, basketball’s my main priority and all this just comes with it.”
CAITLIN CLARK TRACKER: Follow the Iowa star's biggest games and highlights in the 2023-24 season
Now about Thursday night. Trouble for the Fever was, the other team had someone who was once a pretty big name in college basketball herself. Breanna Stewart’s career at Connecticut did not come with as many points or sellouts as Clark’s but did include four more national championships. Plus, she's been around the WNBA block. While Clark struggled to produce her customary glowing numbers Thursday, Stewart had no such issues. She finished with 31 points. Clark had nine, with seven rebounds and six assists. She cut her turnovers from 10 in the season opener to three but never had the impact that the throng had come hoping to see. Her last game scoring in single figures was Jan. 9, 2021 with eight points at Northwestern — the only time that happened in 139 Iowa contests.
Clark took college basketball by storm so quickly — she cracked 30 points in three of her first five games and had her first triple-double inside of a month — but now is facing formidable obstacles. Opponents are stronger, savvier and more talented. The games roll by one after another. Thursday’s home opener as a pro came only 39 days after her last bow as a Hawkeye in the national championship loss. “The game,” she admitted, “seems a little fast for me right now.” And her celebrity has made her a target for defenses.
She has had two human games, two rookie games, two welcome-to-the-WNBA games. “People are playing her hard, people are playing her aggressively,” teammate Katie Lou Samuelson said Thursday night. “We can do a better job trying to help her get some space and help her get some freedom. Teams are really, really, really hounding her full-court, 94 feet.”
Sides wanted to address any premature worries. She was angry that her team did not show more fire and fight Thursday night with a packed arena there to watch — “We’ve got to make the fans proud with what we put on the floor. We didn’t do that tonight. That’s unacceptable,” she fumed — but was not upset that her rookie point guard didn’t go for 25. “She’s going to be fine. She just needs to get a little bit of confidence right now,” she said and reminded that Clark has had little time to work out the kinks with her new teammates. “We only had a couple of weeks, 13 or 14 practices. They will learn each other and figure it out.”
Veteran Diana Taurasi talked a month ago about how “reality is coming” for Clark as she learned her way in the WNBA. The dust storm from Clarkmania has obscured the fact of life that nobody waltzes into pro basketball and just takes over the place. That was the message from Thursday night, and how Clark’s challenge has changed from that first Iowa home game four years ago. This is going to be harder than just learning when they introduce you in the starting lineup.
