Fourteen thousand nine hundred ninety-eight warm bodies kept their backsides in seats even though the match was all but over not even halfway through the first quarter. They were at the Carver-Hawkeye Arena on a pleasant Sunday afternoon to see their beloved Fever, particularly homegrown superstar Caitlin Clark, play. It didn’t matter that the Brazil National Team members were decidedly out of the league of their favorites, as evidenced by the 108-44 final score.
As far as the fans were concerned, the preseason set-to offered them enough of the Fever to tide them over until the start of the 2025 WNBA season on May 16. That they stayed from opening tip to final buzzer — cheering on each of the 14 players newly installed head coach Stephanie White called to action — spoke volumes of their excitement of what is to come. Not that they can be blamed. The red, blue, and gold are stacked; the fortified brain trust and key recruits that include six-time All-Star DeWanna Bonner and former Defensive Player of the Year awardee Natasha Howard feed into their title projections.
To be sure, the Fever will go only as far as Clark, the league’s assists leader as a rookie and a popular bet in sports books for the Most Valuable Player award, can take them. With a year under her belt and now far more knowledgeable about competition in the W, she see a grand opportunity to turn prognosis into practice alongside returning stalwarts Aliyah Boston, Kelsey Mitchell, and Lexie Hull. And if there’s anything she showed in the way she carved up the hapless competition the other day, it’s that she’s more than ready for the task at hand.
There can be no doubting the impact Clark has made to the sport. She certainly has a flair for the dramatic; The other day, for instance, she launched — and made — a trademark three-point shot a good two feet behind the marker the Hawkeyes placed on the floor to celebrate her breaking the all-time scoring record in the NCAA. That said, she did so to claim a two-for-one break near the end of the third quarter. Which is why she fills stadiums; even her eye-popping exploits have underlying reasons.
Whether the Fever can meet their ultimate objective remains to be seen. What’s clear, though, is that they’re primed, and if they fail, they know they need only look in the mirror to see who to blame.
Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994. He is a consultant on strategic planning, operations and human resources management, corporate communications, and business development.
