More Caitlin Clark drama | The Boneyard

More Caitlin Clark drama

Watched the whole game yesterday and it was ugly throughout. Referees were an inconsistant hot mess. The trash talking, bumping and grabbing on D, offensive players pushing and bumping defenders off their spot, micro-touch fouls called, maulings not called, flops... [sigh]. Very hard to watch. The Sun dominated teams in the regular season for years with aggressive, physical D. Now devoid of top talent, teams are delighting in dominating the Sun in a very overt way.
 
I'm not sure why this is on the UConn forum, but I watched that game and I don't think Jacy was assessed a flagrant foul for incidental contact. The only fouls called on that play were three technicals given to Caitlin (for bumping into Jacy in the immediate aftermath and cursing her, I think) and to Marina Mabrey for sneaking a cheap shot at Caitlin from behind Tina, who was trying to calm things down, and Tina unfortunately got one too for trying to make peace. Later in the game, Sophie Cunningham (naturally) took a cheap shot at Jacy and was ejected.

And just to be clear, there was nothing particularly aggressive about Jacy's play. She accidentally poked Caitlin in the eye. That's it. Nothing nasty about it. Caitlin took offense at it, and I can understand why given how hard she was regularly fouled last season. But this was not one of those incidents. She overreacted and created an incident that allowed Mabrey to get a cheap shot in, and later for Cunningham to reciprocate.
 
fireford said:
Did things get overly dramatic as a result of this play? I'll say "yes".

Is getting gouged in the eye WWE style a "play on" type of play? I'll say "no".
Expand ...
From this one replay, it doesn't look like an eye gouge to me. It looks like her hand brushes by her, returning to her body. Now I haven't studied it particularly hard and I could be wrong. If you have another video that you believe shows an eye gouge, I'll take a look and let you know what I think.
 
Bone Dog said:
I'm not sure why this is on the UConn forum
Expand ...
Because it's the summer and we talk about Caitlin Clark often. I have no issue though if the mods want to move it wherever they think it's more appropriate.
 
psconn said:
Watched the whole game yesterday and it was ugly throughout. Referees were an inconsistant hot mess. The trash talking, bumping and grabbing on D, offensive players pushing and bumping defenders off their spot, micro-touch fouls called, maulings not called, flops... [sigh]. Very hard to watch. The Sun dominated teams in the regular season for years with aggressive, physical D. Now devoid of top talent, teams are delighting in dominating the Sun in a very overt way.
Expand ...
During their offseason zoom calls to figure out how to market their product better, they probably noticed that this crap sells for the NBA and said great, let’s do it.
 
fireford said:
Did things get overly dramatic as a result of this play? I'll say "yes".

Is getting gouged in the eye WWE style a "play on" type of play? I'll say "no".
Expand ...
Her eye was not gouged. She knows her fans love her and she can do no wrong. She is constantly fouling when she is dribbling by pushing off on her opponent and it is rarely called. Some of her teammates acted as if it was intentional.
 
Bone Dog said:
I'm not sure why this is on the UConn forum, but I watched that game and I don't think Jacy was assessed a flagrant foul for incidental contact. The only fouls called on that play were three technicals given to Caitlin (for bumping into Jacy in the immediate aftermath and cursing her, I think) and to Marina Mabrey for sneaking a cheap shot at Caitlin from behind Tina, who was trying to calm things down, and Tina unfortunately got one too for trying to make peace. Later in the game, Sophie Cunningham (naturally) took a cheap shot at Jacy and was ejected.

And just to be clear, there was nothing particularly aggressive about Jacy's play. She accidentally poked Caitlin in the eye. That's it. Nothing nasty about it. Caitlin took offense at it, and I can understand why given how hard she was regularly fouled last season. But this was not one of those incidents. She overreacted and created an incident that allowed Mabrey to get a cheap shot in, and later for Cunningham to reciprocate.
Expand ...
This is the General Forum where it is okay to post non-UConn info.
 
donalddoowop said:
Her eye was not gouged. She knows her fans love her and she can do no wrong. She is constantly fouling when she is dribbling by pushing off on her opponent and it is rarely called. Some of her teammates acted as if it was intentional.
Expand ...
Earlier this year, we saw Angel Reese flop after a normal foul then rise up to fight and CC get the Flagrant 1.

"Clark gets all the calls" is a relic from her college days. I don't think anyone can watch Fever games and think she receives kid gloves from the refs.
 
psconn said:
Watched the whole game yesterday and it was ugly throughout. Referees were an inconsistant hot mess. The trash talking, bumping and grabbing on D, offensive players pushing and bumping defenders off their spot, micro-touch fouls called, maulings not called, flops... [sigh]. Very hard to watch. The Sun dominated teams in the regular season for years with aggressive, physical D. Now devoid of top talent, teams are delighting in dominating the Sun in a very overt way.
Expand ...

I don't see it that way. It's your earlier point where the referees never got control of the game from the start.
 
my2cents said:
WNBA basketball is more like rugby than basketball. Mabrey's push should have resulted in an ejection.
Expand ...
I've noted this in the WNBA thread, but I don't think she could have been at that point. It was a dead ball situation when it happened. If my memory on the rules is correct, she would have had to be assessed with 2 technicals or a flagrant 2 for an ejection to be warranted.

At that point of the game, no one had been assessed a tech and I'm not sure if that push was enough for it to be considered a flagrant 2. Had technicals been called earlier when Clark and Sheldon had their initial shoving situation, maybe, but still not 100% sure.
 
Bone Dog said:
I'm not sure why this is on the UConn forum, but I watched that game and I don't think Jacy was assessed a flagrant foul for incidental contact. The only fouls called on that play were three technicals given to Caitlin (for bumping into Jacy in the immediate aftermath and cursing her, I think) and to Marina Mabrey for sneaking a cheap shot at Caitlin from behind Tina, who was trying to calm things down, and Tina unfortunately got one too for trying to make peace. Later in the game, Sophie Cunningham (naturally) took a cheap shot at Jacy and was ejected.

And just to be clear, there was nothing particularly aggressive about Jacy's play. She accidentally poked Caitlin in the eye. That's it. Nothing nasty about it. Caitlin took offense at it, and I can understand why given how hard she was regularly fouled last season. But this was not one of those incidents. She overreacted and created an incident that allowed Mabrey to get a cheap shot in, and later for Cunningham to reciprocate.
Expand ...
"Accidentally poked Caitlin in the eye". Nah. Even if this situation didn't escalate the way it did, Jacy would have still earned her Flagrant 1 foul for hitting Caitlin in the face. Rightfully so.

The situation is not about being "nasty" or even doing something intentional. It's about the WNBA drawing lines about what type of aggressiveness will be tolerated - something that the WNBA seems very reluctant to do.

There is absolutely no reason for a defensive player to have her hands extended out towards an offensive player's face when the offensive player isn't shooting. Clark wasn't in the act of shooting, nor was she driving low or with her face down.

It's one thing to have your hands up when playing defense - every coach at every level encourages that. But to lower your hands toward's an opponent's face and make contact (and in this particular case lunge at her), then Flagrant 1 fouls should be called.

I agree with many posters that the aggressiveness of WNBA defense has gotten out of hand this season. The grabbing and holding that occurred with CC last season has blossomed to a point where it is happening to a lot more players. This is on the league to correct and the refs to police.
 
CL82 said:


Apparently, Sheldon was assessed a flagrant foul on this? Honestly, it looks more like a play on, but for the Clark flop.
Expand ...

I can't tell what's a joke here anymore. She got jacked in the face and then got ragdolled WWF style.

It's wild how much hatred there is for her considering she singlehandedly gave the league some relevancy.
 
superjohn said:
I can't tell what's a joke here anymore. She got jacked in the face and then got ragdolled WWF style.
Expand ...
That's fair. It is hard to tell, sometimes, what's snark versus actual comments. And there have been many times where people have been really clocked and I have sarcastically said "I didn't see any contact". This time, however, I'm being serious. Which isn't to say that there might have been an egregious foul and I just can't see it from the relatively badvideo I have in front of me. That's why I'm open to looking at a different video of somebody has one.

In the meantime, let's take at this frame by frame. First, here's the moment of supposed "contact":
IMG_0812.jpeg

1. Sheldon's hand is in front of Clark's face. Clark's head is in no way displaced.

Next
IMG_0813.jpeg

2. Sheldon's hand is now away from Clark's face. Clark's face is still hasn't been "displaced" by the supposed force of the Sheldon blow.

I'll continue this in the next post
 
IMG_0815.jpeg

3. Video continues and now Sheldon's hand is. below the letters on Clark's jersey. Clark's head is still not displaced.

IMG_0816.jpeg

4. Sheldon's hand is now below Clark's waist. This is the first time we see Clark's face moving away from Sheldon as if there was an impact.
 
YKCornelius said:
"Accidentally poked Caitlin in the eye". Nah. Even if this situation didn't escalate the way it did, Jacy would have still earned her Flagrant 1 foul for hitting Caitlin in the face. Rightfully so.

The situation is not about being "nasty" or even doing something intentional. It's about the WNBA drawing lines about what type of aggressiveness will be tolerated - something that the WNBA seems very reluctant to do.

There is absolutely no reason for a defensive player to have her hands extended out towards an offensive player's face when the offensive player isn't shooting. Clark wasn't in the act of shooting, nor was she driving low or with her face down.

It's one thing to have your hands up when playing defense - every coach at every level encourages that. But to lower your hands toward's an opponent's face and make contact (and in this particular case lunge at her), then Flagrant 1 fouls should be called.

I agree with many posters that the aggressiveness of WNBA defense has gotten out of hand this season. The grabbing and holding that occurred with CC last season has blossomed to a point where it is happening to a lot more players. This is on the league to correct and the refs to police.
Expand ...
I think you and I saw the events of the 3rd quarter differently. It did indeed look like incidental contact to the face to me. I'd have expected at most a personal foul on Jacy, that's it. If you look at replays from the moments before the contact -- not just the ones of the contact itself -- what you see is Caitlin and Jacy playing in typical WNBA fashion, with Caitlin bucking her shoulder repeatedly into Jacy near the free throw line and Jacy holding her ground by pushing back against the shoulder treatment. In college, Caitlin would have gotten an offensive foul called for lowering her shoulder into a defender, or Jacy would have gotten a blocking foul called, long before the contact to Caitlin's eye ever occurred. But in the W, this sort of thing is routinely permitted.

I was surprised that Jacy got anything more than a personal foul for the eye poke. It certainly wasn't intentional, nor was it flagrant. But once the refs had let it escalate as far as they did, and teammates and coaches got involved, I suppose they needed to do something to calm tempers down even if it was not a reasonable assessment of actual fouls.

The after-echo of that event is clearly visible at the end of the 4th when Cunningham commits what is clearly a flagrant foul on Jacy after committing a hard foul on a fast break layup. At the point, Jacy has no real alternative but to stand up to Sophie, who seems to be quite clever about managing flagrant foul situations. But if the refs had simply whistled the initial contact between Caitlin and Jacy -- either as an offensive foul or a blocking foul -- none of the rest would have happened.

Here's the replay courtesy of ESPN, first the Cunningham incident in the 4th quarter. But if you go to the 2:55 minute mark, you can see a longer clip of the 3rd quarter events that focus on what led up to the eye-poke.
 
Last edited:
Last one....
IMG_0817.jpeg

5. Now we see Clark's head snapped well away from Sheldon mouth opened and presumably yelling.

Now, again this is all I could say from what I have, if there's a better video post it, I'll take a look at it.

We can agree that the entire event does seem very WWF in that there seems to be minimal contact but a whole lot of reaction to it.
 
YKCornelius said:
"Accidentally poked Caitlin in the eye". Nah. Even if this situation didn't escalate the way it did, Jacy would have still earned her Flagrant 1 foul for hitting Caitlin in the face. Rightfully so.

The situation is not about being "nasty" or even doing something intentional. It's about the WNBA drawing lines about what type of aggressiveness will be tolerated - something that the WNBA seems very reluctant to do.

There is absolutely no reason for a defensive player to have her hands extended out towards an offensive player's face when the offensive player isn't shooting. Clark wasn't in the act of shooting, nor was she driving low or with her face down.

It's one thing to have your hands up when playing defense - every coach at every level encourages that. But to lower your hands toward's an opponent's face and make contact (and in this particular case lunge at her), then Flagrant 1 fouls should be called.

I agree with many posters that the aggressiveness of WNBA defense has gotten out of hand this season. The grabbing and holding that occurred with CC last season has blossomed to a point where it is happening to a lot more players. This is on the league to correct and the refs to police.
Expand ...
I agree that there are limits to how close a defenders hand should be, but this is a technique that is taught to make it tougher for an offensive player to shoot or pass. This defensive position is commonplace.
 
CL82 said:
That's fair. It is hard to tell, sometimes, what's snark versus actual comments. And there have been many times where people have been really clocked and I have sarcastically said "I didn't see any contact". This time, however, I'm being serious. Which isn't to say that there might have been an egregious foul and I just can't see it from the relatively badvideo I have in front of me. That's why I'm open to looking at a different video of somebody has one.

In the meantime, let's take at this frame by frame. First, here's the moment of supposed "contact":
View attachment 110155
1. Sheldon's hand is in front of Clark's face. Clark's head is in no way displaced.

Next
View attachment 110156
2. Sheldon's hand is now away from Clark's face. Clark's face is still hasn't been "displaced" by the supposed force of the Sheldon blow.

I'll continue this in the next post
Expand ...
It's about as clear a flagrant as you'll ever see. She hit her in the face while making no attempt on the ball. I don't know if she was kicked out of the game but she should have been as should the player who ragdolled her.

20250618_123751.jpg
 
psconn said:
Watched the whole game yesterday and it was ugly throughout. Referees were an inconsistant hot mess. The trash talking, bumping and grabbing on D, offensive players pushing and bumping defenders off their spot, micro-touch fouls called, maulings not called, flops... [sigh]. Very hard to watch. The Sun dominated teams in the regular season for years with aggressive, physical D. Now devoid of top talent, teams are delighting in dominating the Sun in a very overt way.
Expand ...
That's what I was wondering. From only this clip, I was confused as to the Sun players response to this. Clearly something else was going on before this happened.
 
YKCornelius said:
"Accidentally poked Caitlin in the eye". Nah. Even if this situation didn't escalate the way it did, Jacy would have still earned her Flagrant 1 foul for hitting Caitlin in the face. Rightfully so.
Expand ...
Come on. The defender swiped at the ball and inadvertently hit her in the face. That much is obvious
 
This is a discussion that is like a never-ending merry-go-round because of personal viewpoints of Clark and whether she is or isn't being targeted intentionally.

I think at minimum there is a consensus that the officiating of this game was the primary cause of the situation. Otherwise, this is an "agree to disagree" thread that will go on for perpetuity. (insert shrugging shoulders emoji).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Online statistics

Members online
32
Guests online
1,209
Total visitors
1,241
Totals may include hidden visitors.

Share This Page

Forum statistics

Threads
163,987
Messages
4,377,751
Members
10,167
Latest member
CTFan142


.
..
Top Bottom