INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark says it was too loud inside Gainbridge Fieldhouse for her to hear racial comments from fans directed at Angel Reese during Saturday’s season-opening 93-58 victory over the Chicago Sky and that she supports the WNBA’s investigation.
A person familiar with the situation confirmed the details to The Associated Press on Sunday on condition of anonymity because the league had not publicly identified the subject of the taunts or who made the allegations.
Reese, who is Black, and Clark, who is white, met for the seventh time in their ongoing — and much-talked-about — rivalry. Clark won the league’s Rookie of the Year Award last season with Reese finishing second.
Clark spoke for the first time publicly about the allegations Monday after practice. Indiana hosts Atlanta on Tuesday night.
“It’s super loud in here, and though I didn’t hear anything, I think that’s why they’re doing the investigation,” Clark said. “That’s why they’re looking into it. That doesn’t mean nothing happened, so I’ll just trust the league’s investigation, and I’m sure they’ll do the right thing.”
Both teams also have issued statements supporting the investigation and so has the WNBA Players Union.
Reese was booed during player introductions, and they reached a crescendo when she walked to the free-throw line after Clark smacked Reese’s arm to avoid giving up an open layup with 4:38 left in the third quarter. Reese lost the ball and fell to the court before getting up and attempting to confront Clark as she walked away.
Fever center Aliyah Boston stepped between the players and following a replay review, the refs upgraded Clark’s foul to a flagrant 1. Reese and Boston each drew technical fouls.
While Reese, Clark, Fever coach Stephanie White and Sky coach Tyler Marsh all called it a basketball play in their postgame news conferences, none of the four addressed hearing what league officials described as potentially “hateful” comments.
“I told the team, obviously, we’re going to cooperate fully with the investigation,” White said Monday. “But there’s no place for that in our league, whether it’s at home, whether it’s on the road. It doesn’t matter. We want to encourage our players, our staff to bring recognition to it in real time if it’s heard, if it’s seen or anything of that nature.”
Clark finished the game with her third career triple double — 20 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists — as the Fever matched the second-largest victory margin in franchise history. Reese had 12 points and 17 rebounds in her first regular-season game since suffering a season-ending wrist injury in September.
The league also launched its “No Space for Hate” this season, a multidimensional platform designed to combat hate and promote respect across all WNBA spaces both online and in arenas.
The league is focused on four areas: enhanced technological features to detect hateful comments online; increased emphasis on team, arena and league security measures; reinforcing mental health resources; and alignment against hate.
This will be the league’s first major test of it.
“There’s no place for that in our game, no place for that in our society and certainly we want every person that comes into our arena — whether player, whether fan — to have a great experience,” Clark said. “I appreciate the league doing that (investigation), I appreciate the Fever organization has been at the forefront of this really since Day 1 and what they’re doing. With the investigation, we’ll leave that up to them to find anything and take proper action if so.”
AP Basketball Writer Doug Feinberg in New York also contributed to this report.
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