On Saturday, Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese went toe-to-toe in their first game against each other this year. The two WNBA stars have been plagued by rumors of a rivalry since their college teams faced off in 2023, and over the weekend, another encounter reignited the chatter. With minutes left in the third quarter, Clark received a flagrant foul after slapping Reese’s arm, knocking the ball away and Reese to the ground. In clips of the incident, an upset-looking Reese was seen getting up from the floor and briefly confronting Clark, before Clark’s teammate Aliyah Boston got between the two athletes.
After the game, both players downplayed the moment. Clark told reporters she “wasn’t trying to do anything malicious,” adding that “that’s not the type of player I am.”
“Let’s not make it something that it’s not,” she said.
Reese also shot down the notion that there was anything personal about the incident, telling press, “Basketball play. Refs got it right. Move on.”
The two players’ rumored rivalry started in 2023: When Reese’s LSU Tigers beat Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyes in the NCAA women’s finals, Reese taunted Clark with a “you can’t see me” gesture, which had become a go-to move of Clark’s during games. The moment quickly blew up with fans calling Reese, who is Black, “classless” — despite Clark, who is white, having done the same thing.
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Reese pointed out the blatant double standard following the game, saying she was being criticized simply for being herself. “I don’t fit the box that y’all want me to be in. I’m too hood. I’m too ghetto. Y’all told me that all year. When other people do it, y’all don’t say nothing,” she said. Since then, she’s also waved away rumors of tension — after she fouled Clark during a match last year, Reese denied it was anything personal, calling it simply “a basketball play.” Clark backed up her opponent, saying the foul was “just part of basketball.”
In an interview with Time last year, Clark also denied that there’s any bad blood, saying she and Reese are “not best friends, by any means, but we’re very respectful of one another.” She also said the “you can’t see me” gesture “didn’t bother” her and called the controversy about it “fabricated and made up.” Sounds like we can all move on from this foul, then?
