Caitlin Clark made a brief confession after she joined the Indiana Fever this year.
“I grew up loving the Minnesota Lynx,” Clark said during her introductory news conference. “I probably shouldn’t say that anymore.”
On Sunday afternoon, Clark will face the team she grew up supporting.
The Fever (10-14) will tip off against the Lynx (16-7) in Minneapolis in the penultimate game before the Olympic break for both teams. Indiana is looking for its second win in a row while Minnesota is hoping to bounce back from a loss in its last contest.
But the spotlight will be on Clark, as is the case every time the Fever play this season.
That is particularly true in Minnesota, where the Lynx’s arena is about a 4 1/2-hour drive from Clark’s hometown of West Des Moines, Iowa. She told Bally Sports North that the Target Center was where she saw her first WNBA game in person.
Clark traveled north to play the Minnesota Golden Gophers when she was a star player in college with the Iowa Hawkeyes. She also has sat courtside for Minnesota Timberwolves playoff games in part to support former Hawkeyes men’s star Luka Garza.
Fans from Minnesota and neighboring Iowa have followed Clark at every turn. The Lynx said they expect the largest crowd in franchise history on Sunday afternoon with close to 19,000 fans in attendance.
The rookie sensation will try to lead Indiana to its third win in the past four games. Clark is averaging 16.8 points, 7.8 assists and 5.9 rebounds to go along with a team-high 1.5 steals per game.
In the Fever’s last game, a 95-86 win over the Phoenix Mercury, Clark finished with 20 points, 13 assists and six rebounds. Teammates praised her passing ability.
“One thing I can appreciate about Caitlin is her vision and her ability to get the ball up the floor,” said Kelsey Mitchell, who finished with a team-high 28 points. “You don’t see it a lot, so I can appreciate it because I can utilize something I’m pretty decent at, and that’s running. So if I’m open and I feel like I’m in a position to assist her or her assist me, I feel like we play really good basketball that way.”
The Lynx would love to welcome back their best player, Napheesa Collier, who has missed the past three games because of a foot injury. Her status for Sunday’s game is uncertain.
Minus Collier, Kayla McBride led the Lynx with 27 points in a 91-63 setback to the Seattle Storm on Friday.
McBride said she and her teammates could not use Collier’s injury as an excuse.
“No matter what’s going on, we want to be the Lynx, the best version of ourselves,” McBride said. “We can’t let this happen. That was one of the first times I felt that with our group. We don’t want that energy to be us, and it won’t happen again.”
–Field Level Media