Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark has been the subject of many narratives this year as she chased down the women’s basketball scoring record but comments made by four-time WNBA champion Sheryl Swoopes dominated them all.
During a broadcast of the Baylor-Texas Tech game, Swoopes admitted to having reached out to LSU forward Angel Reese and the $818,000 NIL-valued Clark (as per On3) to mend fences due to her comments.
“Honestly a couple of weeks ago I reached out to Angel and had a really good conversation with Angel over the phone and sent a message to Caitlin,” Swoopes said. “And 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,” Swoopes added.”Have nothing but respect for what she has done for the game.
And, you know, 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.”
Swoopes put aside her controversial comments and went on to congratulate Caitlin Clark for breaking the points-scoring record against Michigan a week ago.
“Absolutely. When you look at this list, though, there is some talent on this list,” Swoopes said.
“But for sure Caitlin Clark, what she, not only what she did in that game in breaking the record, what she continues to do every single day for women’s basketball is to be commended and congratulations to her on setting that new record.”
What did Sheryl Swoopes say about Caitlin Clark?
Before Caitlin Clark broke the points-scoring record, Sheryl Swoopes appeared on “Gil’s Arena” and made claims about her that were later proven to be inaccurate.
“If you’re going to break a record, to me if it’s legitimate, you have to break that record in the same amount of time that that player set it,” Swoopes said.
“If Kelsey Plum set that record in four years, Caitlin should have broke that record in four years.
But because there’s a COVID year and then there’s another year, she’s already had an extra year to break that record. So is it truly a broken record?”
Caitlin Clark has in fact not used up her extra year of eligibility allowed to student-athletes due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and she had only played 123 games at the time of the podcast’s release, compared to 139 for Kelsey Plum.
Clark went on to break the record in 126 games, 13 less than Plum managed and Swoopes was called out for the inaccuracies in her statement.
The college football fans can now rest easier as the hatchet has seemingly been buried between the pair.
