The Caitlin Clark show starred the Connecticut Sun on Tuesday night as one of the great scorers in college basketball began her climb in the WNBA where most rookies do — at the bottom.
Clark scored 20 points, including four 3-pointers, but also committed 10 turnovers in a game where the Sun dominated the Indiana Fever 92-71, according to NBC.
Clark showed frustration on the court, as did her father in the stands, as noted in photos posted to Instagram.
Clark was picked first by the Fever, which won only 13 games last season, third-worst in the WNBA and last in its conference. The Sun, on the other hand, had the third-best record in the league last year.
After the game, Clark tried to shrug off a rare learning experience, according to NBC.
“There’s a lot to learn from; it’s the first one,” Clark said, “There’s going to be good ones. There’s going to be bad ones.”
Did you watch Caitlin Clark’s WNBA debut?
“Obviously too many turnovers — that’s not going to get the job done. There’s a lot of things to learn from,” she continued, adding the understatement of the evening: “I would have liked to have played a little better tonight.”
“I thought it took me a little while to settle into the game,” Clark said. “I thought the second half was a lot better minus some of the turnovers.”
Dijonai Carrington is putting the clamps on Caitlin Clark 🔒 pic.twitter.com/pGQ7MlXIqb
— ESPN (@espn) May 15, 2024
Clark said she is not planning to spend time looking back.
“I’m disappointed, and nobody likes to lose, but I don’t think you can beat yourself up too much about one game,” Clark said, according to ESPN. “I don’t think that’s going to help this team. Just learn from it and move on.”
Connecticut’s DiJonai Carrington stalked Clark all night, giving her little room to move.
Fever coach Christie Sides said the rest of the team has “to help her out. We’ve got to do a better job of coming back to the ball,” NBC reported.
Yeah they was waiting on Caitlin Clark to hit the league. She getting this every night. pic.twitter.com/eBU0oxjw7J
— Mink Flow (@currypistonn) May 15, 2024
The Sun “had a game plan against her, and it’s just going to take some time for her to figure that speed and quickness and physicality out,” Sides said. “We try to rep it and mimic that at our practices with our practice guys as much as we could. But it’s just not the same.”
“She’s a rookie,” Sides said, according to ESPN. “This is the best league in the world. We’ve got to teach her. We’ve got to teach her what these games are going to look like for her every single night. And we’ve got to eliminate some of that pressure for her, and that’s on me.”
The Fever has its home opener Thursday against the New York Liberty, which was the second-best team in the WNBA last year.
Aliyah Boston coaching Caitlin Clark after struggling in the first half. pic.twitter.com/8RD0rGZvfe
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) May 15, 2024
Writing for The Washington Post, Candace Buckner noted that Clark will face a lot of WNBA players who are waiting to teach her a lesson.
“She’s playing against grown women who will force her to throw bad passes out of double-team traps. They’re not going to stand there and allow Clark to play the conductor of a beautiful basketball symphony as she did in Iowa, pounding the rock while probing the defense. Instead, these career women will force her into discomfort and some very un-Caitlin like moments,” Buckner wrote.
