Last year’s women’s college basketball championship series between the LSU Lady Tigers and the Iowa Hawkeyes created a new rivalry for college basketball casuals: Angel Reese vs. Caitlin Clark.
Reese’s Tigers came out on top, but Caitlin Clark was and still is in the limelight this season, and she’s driving the narrative. Clark has already broken an NCAA scoring record, and with the Hawkeyes’ record at 23-3, better than LSU’s current 22-4, the two teams might see each other again in the postseason.
However, the media has kept what felt like an on-court rivalry between Reese and Clark alive and well, even though they have kept their competitiveness on the court. When Clark broke Kelsey Plum’s record as the all-time NCAA women’s scoring leader, Reese applauded her accomplishment publicly.
“Congratulations @CaitlinClark22, KEEP BREAKING RECORDS AND MAKING HER-STORY!” Reese tweeted in all caps with hearts and fire emojis.
Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark Beef Doesn’t Exist
The post proves that Reese respects and admires Clark, far from the “you can’t see me” hand gesture Reese did to Clark last year during the defeat of the Iowa Hawkeyes 102-85 to win their first-ever national championship.
The two athletes made history together on April 2, 2023, and the game is now also the highest-scoring championship game in women’s NCAA history.
However, when basketball legend Sheryl Swoopes gave her opinion on Clark’s chase to become the collegiate women’s all-time scoring leader, it created a potential new wedge in popular opinion between Reese and Clark.
“If Kelsey Plum set that record in four years, well, Caitlin should’ve broke that record in four years,” Swoopes said on the “Gil’s Arena” podcast before Clark broke the record. “But because there’s a COVID year, and then there’s another year, you know what I mean? So she’s already had an extra year to break that record. So, is it truly a broken record? I don’t know. I don’t think so. But yeah, that’ll go in the record books. And, I don’t think it should be.”
After Clark broke the record, Swoopes admitted a mistake in her statement. Clark is in her fourth year, not fifth, and beat the record with the same amount of time as Plum.
Sheryl Swoopes Apologizes to Caitlin Clark
“A couple of weeks ago, I reached out to (Reese) and had a really good conversation with Angel over the phone and sent a message to Caitlin,” Swoopes said during Sunday’s Baylor-Texas Tech broadcast. “She responded. She and I went back and forth. I won’t share what she said, I’ll leave that to her if she wants to share. But I will say what I said to her was, ‘I made a mistake in saying it was your fifth year when it is your fourth.’
“I have nothing but respect for what she has done for the game. If she wants to share what her response was and how that conversation went, I’ll leave that to her. But it was a really good conversation.”
Still, the Iowa faithful let it be known that they heard Swoopes loud and clear and that she was now worthy of a disparaging catchphrase, “Don’t Be A Sheryl.” During the team’s 111-93 Penn State defeat, Hawkeyes fans proudly wore T-shirts with the phrase.
Midwest White Women Come Up With A New Term To Disparage Swoopes
To be clear, the fact that Midwestern white women are the driver of this phrase is rife with its own cultural problems that feel outside the lines of basketball, specifically an attempt at creating ‘Black Karen’ vibes around Swoopes’ name.
For the inaccuracy in her statement about Clark, this might not be too far off the mark but in this case, the messengers matter more than the message, especially after an admission of a mistake by Swoopes.
Reese caught wind of the “Karen-ization” of Swoopes’ opinion and replied on social media wearing a T-shirt of her own: “Be A Sheryl,” in a picture with Swoopes captioned:
“The Past & The Present I love you @airswoopes22,” with a crown emoji. This is after Swoopes also said that she doesn’t think Reese will come into the WNBA and dominate immediately on the same “Gil’s Arena” podcast.
Caitlin Clark has kept it quiet on Swoopes, focusing on having a blockbuster year and chasing a title to cap off her incredible college career.
While the two faces of collegiate women’s basketball today focus on the same mission, the great divide exaggerated by Sheryl Swoopes’ opinions, Angel Reese’s support, and Caitlin Clark’s defensive fan base will place these two in a new-age version of Magic and Bird; whether real or manufactured.
