Caitlin Clark Shares Thoughts On Unwanted Double-Double In WNBA Debut

 

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Caitlin Clark made her long-awaited WNBA Debut on Tuesday night and things didn’t exactly go according to plan.

Clark had a double-double for the Indiana Fever with 20 points and 10 turnovers in a 92-71 loss to Alyssa Thomas and the Connecticut Sun.

After the game, Clark spoke about her difficult introduction to the league and what her next step looks like.

“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 after the contest. “I don’t think that’s going to help this team.

“Just learn from it and move on.”

 

 

Clark finished the night with 20 points on just 5-of-15 shooting. She shot 4-of-11 from beyond the arc, but a pair of those 3-pointers came with the game well out of reach in the fourth quarter.

She also recorded just three assists and had zero rebounds, a far cry from the incredible stat lines she was putting up at the University of Iowa.

 

To her credit, however, the WNBA does not make it easy on rookies. Especially rookie point guards.

The Fever selected Clark with the No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft on April 15. Teams then had less than two weeks of practice before preseason and just two preseason games before the regular season began.

That’s not exactly a ton of time to learn a new offense with a bunch of new teammates. Couple that with the fact that Connecticut has two future Basketball Hall of Fame members in Thomas and DeWanna Bonner and suddenly becomes a lot less of a surprise that Clark struggled.

“I think definitely the physicality,” Clark said when asked what caused her trouble. “I think also just like some uncharacteristic stuff. Like, I pick up the ball and travel, I dribble off my foot, I pass it on the inbound, I turn it over. So just a few things that are just — you have to be crisper.”

Which is what WNBA superstar Diana Taurasi was trying to tell fans all along. But they didn’t seem to want to listen.

Clark will likely improve as the season goes on. But even if she doesn’t, a massive leap in year two is far from out of the question given the circumstances.