Getty Image / Chet White
Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark has very much settled into her WNBA career after her illustrious, record-shattering, four year college career at Iowa. The fever are playing great ball after a terrible start, and Clark looks like she’s already one of the best players in the league.
The Fever have been red-hot coming out of the Olympic break, but there have been some ups and downs, too. One of those downs was Caitlin Clark getting called for a technical foul in Sunday’s win over the Storm, a call that she said fired her up.
Here’s the play and technical foul. It’s a truly ridiculous call.
I just witnessed one of the worst technical fouls ever called on Caitlin Clark just now.
Misses shot on one end, comes back on defense, ball goes out of play, slaps stanchion in frustration, gets called for a tech.
Insane. pic.twitter.com/aTyZPhNyOl
— 24/7 High School Hoops (@247HSHoops) August 18, 2024
I mean, come on. What are we doing here?! This should not be a technical foul past high school basketball. Yet, a WNBA ref thought it was good enough to ring up the league’s marquee player.
But, Caitlin Clark, who got off to a slow start, played much better after this. Altogether, she was 9-19 from the field and 3-10 from deep for 23 points, and added 9 assists to go with 5 rebounds.
Did the absurd technical foul make her play better? Caitlin Clark thinks so.
CC on her tech: “[The ref] told me it was disrespectful to the game of basketball… reminded me of the technical I got in college where I said dammit, where it’s like a personal frustration…. but I think he fired me up to continue to play a lot harder… so I want to thank him.” pic.twitter.com/gkDMoXcI0X
— Matthew Byrne (@MatthewByrne1) August 18, 2024
Clark also broke the all-time rookie record for assists in a single season with twelve games left to spare. Maybe she needs to get hit with technical fouls more often.
The Fever won their second straight game out of the Olympic Break and are firmly in a playoff position.