The rest of the league seems to be able to get away with being angry at Caitlin Clark, but Caitlin Clark is apparently not allowed to get mad, even at herself.
The WNBA’s run-away favorite for rookie of the year had another solid stat line on Sunday as she put up 23 points, beat the Seattle Storm, and broke the WNBA’s rookie assist record.
You know, another typical day in the life of Caitlin Clark.
However, she was only 3-10 from three-point range. A performance that aggravated her to the point that she slammed her hand into the stanchion after missing a long-range shot late in the third quarter.
The outburst drew a technical foul from the referee.
“I got a technical for basically being mad at myself because I missed a 3, and then I went and hit the backboard, and he told me it was disrespectful to the game of basketball,” Clark said. “…It reminded me of the technical I got in college, where I said ‘damn it,’ where it’s like a personal frustration. Had nothing to do with my team, had nothing to do with the reffing, had nothing to do with the other team. It’s just because I’m a competitor.”
Clark added that the tech actually motivated her.
“But I think he fired me up to continue to play a lot harder. I thought we got a lot better after that. I want to thank him for that. But overall, I thought once we got to that media timeout around five minutes in the third quarter, I thought we all kind of took a breath. It was all chaos there for two and a half minutes.”
Clark continued, “I think I could have done a better job of regaining my cool, but that’s like the fire and passion that just gets me going; it’s just finding a way to channel that, use that, and I think I did a real good job of that at the end of the third quarter, start of the fourth quarter.”
X users offered some funny takes and generally agreed with the call.
Clark and the Indiana Fever beat the Storm 92-75 and currently hold the three-seed in the WNBA’s Eastern Conference playoff standings.