General WBB Thread

[Demo]

On 6/26/2026 at 1:24 PM, Stuhoo said:

Good lord Clark drives me nuts; leading the league in assists... and fouls, technical fouls, and turnovers.

In a way I feel sorry for her (and especially for her teammates) -- every ridiculous flop turns into national drama. IUWBB fans are well-aware that this kind of crap follows her and only her, and that some of the really outstanding IUWBB players like Grace, Mack, and Chloe really despised her because of 'how she is'.

So this week? She gets in a typical on-court loose ball scrum, which when watched at normal/game speed is a big nothing, but when you freeze the frame JUST RIGHT, it looks like she being criminally assaulted. This is what the actual play in question looked like:

 

The WNBA is a straight up mess. It’s the worst officiated League I’ve ever seen. High School leagues are called more consistently. I think Clark is officiated horribly, but the fact that in real time she can’t connect the dots between showing up refs, which she does all the time, and getting a bad whistle is just self-perpetuating. It’s got to drive White nuts since it bleeds over into everything they’re trying to do. In that case i thought it was flagrant and Thomas is incredibly cheap and has been for years but because the League has no consistent standard for officiating physicality she’s gotten away with a lot of that stuff. But someone in their League office needs to figure out that Clark is straight up bigger than their League and Englebert is hellbent on not going there. These 7 figure supermax deals available now would have been laughed at 4 years ago and that’s on Clark. Stern was willing to go there with Jordan and that was with Bird and Magic. Stewart or Collier or Bueckers aren’t comparable to those guys. Obviously there are cultural and historical pieces that are tough to work with, but they gotta figure it out or they’re gonna set back the progress they’ve made, yet again.

[Stuhoo]

31 minutes ago, Demo said:

The WNBA is a straight up mess. It’s the worst officiated League I’ve ever seen. High School leagues are called more consistently. I think Clark is officiated horribly, but the fact that in real time she can’t connect the dots between showing up refs, which she does all the time, and getting a bad whistle is just self-perpetuating. It’s got to drive White nuts since it bleeds over into everything they’re trying to do. In that case i thought it was flagrant and Thomas is incredibly cheap and has been for years but because the League has no consistent standard for officiating physicality she’s gotten away with a lot of that stuff. But someone in their League office needs to figure out that Clark is straight up bigger than their League and Englebert is hellbent on not going there. These 7 figure supermax deals available now would have been laughed at 4 years ago and that’s on Clark. Stern was willing to go there with Jordan and that was with Bird and Magic. Stewart or Collier or Bueckers aren’t comparable to those guys. Obviously there are cultural and historical pieces that are tough to work with, but they gotta figure it out or they’re gonna set back the progress they’ve made, yet again.

Another real problem with Clark? She just isn't all that good or winning of a basketball player.

She has an excellent supporting cast, yet the team is 10-8 with her in the lineup (1-0 without her). She is a talented offensive player, but more of a Pete Maravich/James Harden/Trae Young type of talent than a Kobe/Michael/ Brunson/Wemby/Jalen Brown, etc. etc. 'makes everyone around her better' type. A career 41% fg, 33% 3pt shooter on way too high volume and a negative on the defensive end. 

So the league and media has instead hitched their wagon to a 'great white hope' player who may not be up to the task. This happened with Larry Bird (also a surly guy on the court) but the key difference was that Bird was great enough to lead great supporting casts to multiple championships; he made the players around him better. I don't think that Clark is good enoough to do that, and that will only exacerbate the situation.

[Class of '66 Old Fart]

Beginning with next year's women’s NCAA tournament, the top 16 teams will be placed in the bracket in their true ranking regardless of conference affiliation.

https://www.espn.com/womens-college-basketball/story/_/id/49353866/ncaa-women-tourney-seed-top-16-true-ranking-2027

[LIHoosier]

I'll throw this in here. I was perusing the home page of ESPN the other day and saw this. It's like bumping into a cousin you thought moved to another country.