If Caitlin Clark was looking for sympathy with Iowa leading by 19 points, her dad wasn’t about to offer it from the stands.
It looked like the most popular player in women’s college basketball was complaining to the officials – or maybe to her father – after a foul was called on her teammate Saturday with less than one minute to go in the second quarter of an NCAA Tournament first-round game.
The ESPN television camera panned to her father, Brent, yelling back to “Stop!”
caitlin clark complaining to the officials & her dad just telling her to shut up has me in tears man😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/5JnhMPn4lg
— cj (@wsgadlibs) March 23, 2024
Caitlin Clark’s dad Brent yells at her during Iowa’s March Madness game on Saturday.ABC
Iowa’s Caitlin Clark complains during a March Madness game on Saturday.Julia Hansen/Iowa City Press-Citizen / USA TODAY NETWORK
Let’s just say he wasn’t criticizing the officials, too.
CBS reporter Brad Crawford claimed that Brent later could be heard saying, “Take her out, my gosh,” after his daughter committed an offensive foul and her sixth turnover of the first half.
Sounds like Clark played poorly, right? Well, she nearly finished with a triple-double, scoring 27 points and adding 10 assists and eight rebounds over 31 minutes as No. 1 Iowa routed No. 16 Holy Cross, 91-65, in the Albany 2 Region.
Iowa will face No. 8 West Virginia at 8 p.m. Monday on ESPN.
Brent was Caitlin’s first basketball coach and she credits him for pushing her to be better at a young age. Particularly when it came to developing her patented long-range 3-pointers.
Iowa guard Caitlin Clark (22) passes the ball against Holy Cross guard Bronagh Power-Cassidy (13) during a March Madness game on Saturday.Lily Smith/The Register / USA TODAY NETWORK
“I give a lot of credit to my dad,” Clark told ESPN last month. “He was my first-ever basketball coach, but he was the guy that would never let me shoot 3s when I was a young kid because he knew my form would be awful.”
She added, “”I probably didn’t like it at the time and I was mad at him about it, but looking back, shooting form fundamentals are the best thing.”
So, Caitlin has some experience not liking her father’s instant reactions but coming around to see his point of view.
