Caitlin Clark Gets a Black Eye Early in Her ‘Frustrating’ WNBA Playoff Debut: a ‘Tough Time’

Mar. 15, 2025

Caitlin Clark.Photo:M. Anthony Nesmith/Icon Sportswire via Getty

M. Anthony Nesmith/Icon Sportswire via Getty

Caitlin Clarkhad a rookie season that will be remembered for ages, but her WNBA playoff debut on Sunday is a game she’d probably like to forget.

“[Carrington] got me pretty good in the eye; I don’t think it affected me,” Clark said, according to theAssociated Press, refusing to blame her relatively lackluster performance on the first quarter incident. “I felt like I got good shots, they just didn’t go down. Tough time for that to happen. I thought I got some really good looks. Three pretty wide open 3s in the first half, you usually make.”

Clark, who wasunanimously named the WNBA’s Rookie of the Yearon Saturday, scored just 11 points. That’s well below the average 19.2 points per game she put up throughout the regular season, as the Connecticut Sun blew out Indiana 93-69 to take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three playoff series.

Caitlin Clark.M. Anthony Nesmith/Icon Sportswire via Getty

The star rookie only made 23.5% of her shots, compared to the regular season when she made 41.7% of her shots per game.

It was a “frustrating” postseason debut, Clark told reporters after the game.

“My shot felt like it was right there,” Clark said, according to the AP. “It’s so frustrating as a shooter when it won’t go down for you.”

The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now!

“We were right there, I felt like we just played a crappy game,” Clark bemoaned afterwards, according toUSA Today. “The flow was really bad, I don’t know if that was the reffing, it was probably partly us because we struggled to get stops at times, but also the clock getting messed up, it was just one thing after the next.”

Fans online played living room investigators after the game and questioned whether Dijonai Carrington deliberately poked Clark in the eye, slowing down video on social media and trying to decipher the bang-bang first quarter play.

Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up to date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Others also drew comparisons to a physical play late in the third quarter when Clark appeared to get a bit of payback, throwing out her left arm andelbowing Carrington in the facewhile she was guarding Clark. The elbow knocked Carrington’s contact out of her eye and drew a second look from the ESPN broadcast team, as play stopped to allow Carrington to find the lens on the floor.

The two WNBA stars will face off again Wednesday night when Indiana and Connecticut play Game Two of their three-game opening round playoff series.

source: people.com