To the point you made where she is being picked on: yesterday I was telling my wife how this young woman seems to be handling everything with incredible grace.

She has to be in a massive pressure cooker.

Is much of the interest in Caitlin Clark at least post NCAA from people more interested in controversy than actual basketball?

I am not contributing at all to the problems. I still have no interest in women's basketball. I think that used to be a "problem"

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

I don't think statements like this help much. Coach probably could have kept that between the two of them.

https://x.com/.../1799858388026917146

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

As per usual, I suspect windy's need to exercise his internet outrage muscles is probably not aligned with reality. I don't think there was a single mandatory camp. It might have been "mandatory" for the women who were already expected to be on the team, but it doesn't sound like attendance was some sort of mandatory check in the block to be eligible for the team.

The way it was explained on ESPN is that the women who were selected have all been part of multiple national team camps over the past 3 years. 8 of the 12 have Olympic experience, and most of the others have direct experience playing in the gold medal team at the latest World Cup. The April camp was another in a line of those camps, and was the last camp before the WNBA season where players could get used to playing with each other and get to know the coach's system. The selected players will have just about 7 practices before the Olympic tournament starts, so that experience in previous events and camps was important to having a team that already knows the system and each other's tendencies.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Another way of saying that is that it's just a nonsense number you made up.


Nobody is losing their shit, except for a handful of people who never followed women's basketball before but are now somehow emotionally invested in Caitlyn Clark.


Adding Clark to our Olympic team does not build a worldwide audience overnight. It just doesn't.



All of this is fine, and is happening in the context of the WNBA, not the Olympics.


Again, I have to wonder what world you live in. Nobody here in the LR has expressed any desire for Clark not to do well.


Unlike you, who seem to be really angry about this for some reason, I'm just offering the potential reasons for why the women's national team made the decision they did, and why it's not necessarily some sort of conspiracy against Clark out of mean spiritedness or jealousy.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Unlike you, who seem to be really angry about this for some reason, //

No, no anger or emotion at all about all of this. Probably the internet speech makes it come off that way though, so there is that. My comments are just about this business decision being made, well not being made, where it could be a huge boon for womens basketball. It is a dispassionate observation on my part, dont really care one way or the other. I'm not a fan, although I did get sucked into the Caitlin bandwagon at NCAA's, and now follow her stats in the WNBA. So super casual at best, but in that group that could be tipped over since my young daughter is becoming interested because of Catlin mania.


We would have watched some of the US Olympic Games womens B-ball, but a hard pass now. Too many other sports on tap, and not enough time for those even. Just like when the first dream team went to the games, had not watched a single mens game in the olympics until then, and now spend some of my precious viewing hours every 4 years to catch a few games here and there. Dont think I'm alone in that either, so maybe in LA 4 years from now...

Yes. A lot of the coverage is about drama. Relatively little coverage is about her play, or her numbers. It's about whether she's being treated badly because of jealousy. Or if she's being snubbed from the national team. Or if she's getting too much or too little attention. Or it's coverage about the coverage, media making themselves the story as they discuss whether male sports commentators who didn't use to cover the WNBA are now covering Clark properly. Etc, etc.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

They're covering both.

If she has a great game, the cover the game, the tied or broken record, the pace for the season, etc.

If there's some drama, they cover that.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

I gotta admit my interest in women's basketball is normally zero. During the NCAA's it went up a little bit and now with those over it is back hovering around zero. Whether she made the Olympic team would not changed my not watching the women or for that fact the men's team in the Olympics.

This is like Gwen Jorgensen Olympic drama. People crying to put in a B level athlete just cause they are popular

I don't think that's a fair characterization. Clark is more than a B player in the WNBA. She's top 5 in the league in assists and 3pt shots made, and she's top 15 in points per game, minutes per game, top 20 in steals and efficiency. She looks like a lock for rookie of the year.

The issue is not so much that she's a B grade player, but that there's a lot of experienced players available for the team, and you'd have to choose one of them to get rid of to make room for her. She's 22, and the youngest player selected is 26.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Decided to get your troll going today? With this and the CrossFit thing in the other forum. Which no one bit on because everyone knows you pretty well at this point.

im trolling here, the other thread is not a troll thread... did you even read it ? I really would love to see them do a head on TT challenge

I'm not going to all of the sudden pretend to be a WNBA expert, but I saw some memes comparing Clark to Tauasi, and Clark is doing better than her stat wise.

The defense was that Taurasi is 41 years old, which is fair.

But she made the team.

*shrug* Again, I'm not an expert. I'm curious if she really earner her way on the team, or if she's a big name (many said the same about Larry Bird).

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

You really think the last spot on the roster will make or break the US getting a gold medal?

They fucked up the PR and brand management. In a few years if they're wondering why the sport still hasn't taken off well this would be just one more data point

The USWNT has had a ton of star players that pushed the line of becoming household names during Olympic years and beyond. Can you even name the United States women's pro soccer league or any of the teams?

The fact is women's basketball is popular at the collegiate level because it's school vs school. It doesn't translate to sustained professional interest any more than women's soccer does, at least not to the extent you're talking. Clark being included on the team would make sense in some ways, and not in others. It's not egregious that she was excluded nor would it be if she were included, but the idea that it would be anything more than, like you said, another data point, ignores the elephant in the room about women's professional basketball in the United States.

Caitlin Clark can't single-handedly elevate the sport; she can bring a spotlight to it, but once it's shining you see it for what it is.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

And the real telling point is that hardly anyone is talking about actual women’s basketball. They’re talking about marketing women’s basketball, and growing women’s basketball, and the drama around women’s basketball, but definitely not women’s actual basketball. Hardly anyone is talking about great plays, or the dramatic ending of a game, or the particular skill of any player other than Clark, or the depth of a certain team’s bench, etc.

The broader audience doesn’t really want to watch or talk about women’s basketball that much. They just like getting caught up in the momentary outrage cycle.

The women’s national team could take any one of their 12 players off that roster and put Windy in there, and still win the gold. That’s not really the point.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

I't is quite possible I'd be starting for them....Big Country Shaq Windy in da house!

I'm sure you'd be an asset.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

Which bathroom would you use?

Say what you will about the actual games, but consider me a convert. This is good entertainment.

https://x.com/...MKbkOzpNU_o_bXlnvUlQ

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W