Garzon scores 17, Ciezki adds 16 to lead No. 9 seed Indiana to opening NCAA win over No. 8 seed Utah
The Hoosiers (20-12) reached 20 wins and their reward is a likely matchup with the Birmingham 2 Regional's top seed in South Carolina, who will play later Friday against No. 16 seed Tennessee Tech.
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Associated Press
an hour ago
- Associated Press
Maddy Siegrist set to return for Wings after missing 17 games with knee fracture
DALLAS (AP) — Maddy Siegrist is set to return for the Dallas Wings after missing seven weeks with a fracture in her right knee. Siegrist will be available for Friday night's game against the Indiana Fever at the home of the Dallas Mavericks, the team said Thursday. It's the second time the Wings will play at American Airlines Center. They faced the Fever there in late June, losing 94-86 when Caitlin Clark was sidelined by a groin injury. Clark returned after that but has missed the past five Indiana games with the same injury. Siegrist, the NCAA Division I scoring leader ahead of Clark when she played for Villanova in 2022-23, has missed the past 17 games with the knee injury. Injuries limited her to 11 games as a rookie two years ago. Siegrist has averaged 9.4 points and 5.2 rebounds in 11 games and had her only double-double of the season with 15 points and 11 boards the game before she was injured, an 81-65 loss to Minnesota on June 8. ___ AP WNBA:
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
"They ain't shootin' no wild a– threes from halfcourt" - Jeff Teague claims that the Fever are a better team without Caitlin Clark
"They ain't shootin' no wild a– threes from halfcourt" - Jeff Teague claims that the Fever are a better team without Caitlin Clark originally appeared on Basketball Network. Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark has changed the fortunes of the franchise. Indiana snapped a seven-year playoff drought during CC's rookie season in 2024 and posted its first .500 win season since 2016. Despite that, former Atlanta Hawks All-Star point guard Jeff Teague isn't buying the Caitlin Fever. According to Teague, Clark is a good basketball player, but she isn't as good as she is portrayed by her supporters. In fact, Teague agrees that the Fever are a better team without her. "She good, but she not that good," said Teague. When his brother Marquis said that the Fever are actually a better team without Clark, Teague responded: "Cuz, they ain't shootin' no wild a– threes from halfcourt." Clark's shooting struggles are hurting the team Since her college days, CC has been known for her 3-pointers, including her knack for taking logo 3's. But while she was a career 37.7 percent 3-point shooter at Iowa, that number is down to 32.9 percent in the WNBA. This season, Clark has mightily struggled from deep, shooting just 27.9 percent from 3-point distance, logo or not. With 53.1 percent of her total shot attempts this season coming from 3-point territory, Caitlin's field goal percentage is just 36.7 percent, and considering she takes the second most shots per game for her team at 17.5 field goal attempts per game, her shooting woes are hurting the team. ESPN analyst Carolyn Peck agrees with Teague that the Fever are more dangerous without Clark. But she did not talk about her shooting woes, but instead pointed to her 31.6 percent usage rate. "Look, I think Indiana is even more dangerous when Caitlin Clark doesn't play because she's a ball-dominant guard. The ball's in her hands a lot, so you know what you need to try to take away. But when you look at Indiana now, they've got so many weapons and Kelsey Mitchell is playing out of her mind," said is a difference-maker for the Fever Despite her shooting struggles this season, Clark is scoring 16.5 points per game while averaging 8.8 assists per game, which is second in the league behind Alyssa Thomas' 9.4 dimes per contest. CC also contributes 5.0 rebounds and 1.6 steals per game. And then there are the intangibles. The game flows differently when Caitlin plays, as she pushes the tempo and likes to play a fast-paced game. With elite playmaking, the Fever get a lot of easy transition buckets because of Clark. Also, with her ability to knock down the long ball, defenses pay special attention to her, making her teammates tougher to defend by simply being there. These don't show up on the stats sheet. For the record, the Fever are 8-5 in the games that she's played in and just 6-7 when she isn't available. Now, while the two records are separated by only two games, they still prove that Indiana is better off with Caitlin than without. And even if Teague and Peck are correct that the Fever are a dangerous team even without Clark, then they are going to be much better with her on the story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Jul 31, 2025, where it first appeared.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
"You're literally dumb as f–k" - Sophie Cunningham has a message for people who argue that Caitlin is not the WNBA's face
"You're literally dumb as f–k" - Sophie Cunningham has a message for people who argue that Caitlin is not the WNBA's face originally appeared on Basketball Network. Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark is arguably the most popular player in the WNBA today. However, there are certain people who don't buy the "Caitlin Fever" and don't think that the former Iowa standout is the face of the league. Well, Clark's Fever teammate Sophie Cunningham has an NSFW message for them. During the first episode of her "Show Me Something" podcast with West Wilson, Sophie admitted that she is annoyed with people who don't think Caitlin is the WNBA's new face. "It literally like pisses me off when people are like, 'She's not the face of the league,'" Cunningham stated. "What? No, there's really good, well-known people in our league. I'm not discrediting them; we have a lot of bad as—s in our league, like hell yeah to that — I'm all for that. But when people try to argue she's not the face of our league or our league would be where we're at without her, you're dumb as s–t. You're literally dumb as f—k." The WNBA posted record figures in 2024 The WNBA looked like a dying league before Caitlin arrived via the 2024 Draft. Since then, the league's numbers have surged. According to an official press release, the WNBA's 2024 season finished with its best attendance numbers in 22 years while setting the record for digital consumption and merchandise sales. Clark's debut on May 14, 2024, versus the Connecticut Sun was the most watched WNBA game since 2001. Four months later, the Fever's September 19th game at the Capital One Arena versus the Washington Mystics set the WNBA single-game attendance record with 20,711. To prove these two games weren't just flukes, Indiana's total home attendance of 340,715 was also a single-season record for a WNBA team. Meanwhile, overall WNBA attendance improved by 48 percent compared to the previous campaign. The Fever saw its franchise value increase by 273 percent compared to the previous year, the biggest improvement in the WNBA last year. With a value of $335 million, Indiana ranks third overall in the league, behind only big markets such as Golden State ($500 million) and New York ($420 million).The Caitlin effect could hit $1 billion After the historic 2024 campaign, the Indianapolis Star hired valuation expert Ryan Brewer from Indiana University Columbus to study Caitlin's economic impact on the league last year. He concluded that Clark was single-handedly responsible for 26.5 percent of the WNBA's 2024 economy. He also projected that the "Caitlin Effect" could hit a billion dollars this year. "If things just go as they were, and we have an expanded season of 22 home games with modest inflation, I'm looking at $875 million," Brewer told NBC News. "And I could easily see that eclipsing a billion dollars on the economic impact of Caitlin Clark this year." A survey conducted by media outlet "The Athletic" recently revealed that 53.8 percent of WNBA players agree that Clark will be the face of the league five years from now. However, there are still players who oppose that, even if the numbers don't lie. But as Sophie said, those people are just in story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Jul 31, 2025, where it first appeared.
