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Caitlin Clark’s rookie season ends with Fever’s loss to Sun

Vaseline September 26, 2024

Caitlin Clark’s historic debut season came to an end on Wednesday when the Indiana Fever lost 87-81 to the Connecticut Sun, dropping their first-round playoff series 0-2.

Clark scored 25 points in the loss, with six rebounds and nine assists. She played all 40 minutes, shooting 10 of 23 from the field, including 3 of 12 from 3.

Alyssa Thomas led the Sun with 19 points.

Clark hit a stepback 3 to give the Fever a 71-70 lead with four minutes left, but they were held scoreless the rest of the way. Connecticut closed out the game on a 17-10 run.

The Sun will play either the Minnesota Lynx or the Phoenix Mercury in the next round, their sixth consecutive trip to the semifinals.

It was an eventful game for Clark, regardless of what she did on the field.

In the first quarter, she asked security to deal with a noisy fan.

She also had a chat with Connecticut forward DeWanna Bonner.

Indiana’s elimination ends a stunning run for Clark. She averaged 19.2 points, 5.7 rebounds and 8.4 assists per game and was named first-team All-WNBA, helping the Fever to their first postseason berth since 2016. Clark also won Rookie of the Year in a unanimous vote.

Her 337 regular-season assists were not only a rookie record, but also the WNBA record for assists in a season. She became the first rookie to record a triple-double, and she also set the record for most 3s by a rookie in a single season.

On July 17, Clark had 19 assists in a loss to the Dallas Wings, a WNBA record.

Clark also had a huge impact on the league off the field.

By mid-season she had the best-selling shirt in the league and sales of Fever shirts had increased by over 1,000%.

More than 640,000 fans watched the Fever in person this season, according to Across the Timeline, the most for any team in WNBA history. The average attendance for Indiana games was 88 percent higher than any other game, according to The Associated Press.

Meanwhile, the first game between the Fever and the Sun averaged 1.8 million viewers, making it the most-watched WNBA playoff game since 2000. According to Michael Mulvihill, a Fox executive, Clark’s games outperformed all other games by nearly 200 percent.

After playing her last collegiate game in April, Clark’s professional career began the following month in May. Her upcoming offseason will be her first extended break since her junior year with the Iowa Hawkeyes.