After missing five games due to a left quad injury, Caitlin Clark returned on Friday against the New York Liberty with a bang! She recorded 32 points, nine assists, eight rebounds, and made 11-of-20 shots. She was so enthusiastic about her comeback that she finished the game with the second-most points in her career (less than her 35 points against the Dallas Wings in September) and led her team to a 102-88 victory. All this even drew a reaction from LeBron James, who tweeted, “The CC EFFECT!! WELCOME BACK! You were missed!”

However, James isn’t the only one talking about her. Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, who is a big Clark supporter, took her performance as an opportunity to shut down her naysayers. Remember the time Clark had just entered the league? Many were of the opinion that the physicality and pace of play would be too much for her to handle, and one such person with a similar opinion was UConn coach Geno Auriemma. “The delusional fan base that follows her disrespected the WNBA players by saying she’s going to go in that league and tear it apart,” he said almost a year ago.

“Diana said it best, ‘this kid’s in for a rude awakening,’ and they all jumped over her but they didn’t read the whole thing that she said, but nobody’s printing that you know Diana Taurasi is right. This kid’s on the wrong team, she’s got the wrong skill set to handle the physicality of that league.” And so, Portnoy felt it was the right time to taunt Auriemma’s take. He took to X and shared a clip of the coach sharing his opinion on CC and captioned it: “Did Geno Auriemma have the worst take in the history of sports?”

Perhaps Auriemma wasn’t entirely wrong in his take because, as per Clark’s own admission last year, the physicality was much higher than what she was used to. The game was too fast for her liking, yet she knew it was just a matter of a couple of games before she could get used to it.

Obviously, we’ve seen a lot of her game since then, and it’s quite clear–she’s built for the pros! Many of her haters were turned into supporters, and the effect she had on the league was quite beautiful. So, after Dave Portnoy decided it was time to rewind the clock to Coach Geno’s words, social media users also joined in with their opinions. What did they say?

Social media went wild after Portnoy posted this video. Within just five hours, the tweet logged over 650k views and nearly 9000 likes! But more importantly, an important discourse had started in the replies section, with CC supporters rallying together against this highly polarizing take on the Indiana Fever star.

Some fans pointed out that these comments might be coming because Caitlin Clark did not go to UConn. Although the six-foot-tall point guard did express interest in becoming a Husky, Auriemma did not recruit her. And after the career that she had in college, fans believe he might be regretting his decision!

“Somebody was butt-hurt that CC didn’t go to UConn,” a fan wrote on X. In her four years at Iowa, CC was a 2x POTY, 3x unanimous first-team All-American, and made two straight championship games. She ended up averaging 28.4 points per game throughout her collegiate career, and even broke the Division I scoring record! So it ended up being a very common theory that Coach Geno was upset that he missed out on one of the all-time greats. “Geno Auriemma so so salty that Caitlin Clark didn’t play for UConn. Very obvious,” another X user mentioned.

However, some people came to Auriemma’s defense. “It was a 10 minute interview. He said the same thing about Paige. That she is going to struggle physically. Which she did in her rookie year. Just like Paige is now.” This particular reply was referencing Caitlin Clark’s struggles against the rough play that she encountered in her rookie year. We could clearly see that she had issues battling against screens and holding her own in the paint. However, would it be fair to say that she struggled overall?

via Imago

Considering that CC ended up averaging 19.2 points, 8.4 assists, and nearly 6 rebounds a game while playing all 40 fixtures during her rookie year, there might be an argument to the contrary. The fan support for Caitlin Clark was quite great under Portnoy’s post. “Thats Crazy! WOW… She could play in the NBA… like seriously,” a user penned, echoing sentiments that we’ve consistently seen with Clark fans.

Caitlin Clark’s rookie season created a lot of opportunities for the W. Viewership, tickets, merchandise sales, everything ballooned to massive proportions. Moreover, chartered flights for WNBA players were introduced, and endorsement opportunities massively increased. So, when a fan mentioned, “Anyone who doesn’t think CC changed the WNBA has no idea what they are talking about,” they might have hit the nail on the head!

There’s no doubt that Caitlin Clark has been proving her haters wrong left, right, and center throughout her entire basketball career. Do you think she will continue to do the same ahead? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below