Caitlin Clark says most of what gets written about her relationship with Angel Reese is not true. She called the stories false takes and said people are going to create those narratives and say whatever they want regardless of what actually happens on the floor. She said what she and Reese share is a fiery competitiveness, and that she loves it.
The setting for the comment was a 108 to 56 win over Hungary in the quarterfinals of the FIBA Women’s World Cup in Germany. Forty two points is a wide margin at this level, and Team USA set multiple records getting there. The Americans move on to the semifinals, where they will play the winner of Spain and Australia, still chasing a fifth straight gold.
Clark finished with 10 points, three rebounds, nine assists, and two steals. Most of those assists went to Reese. Reese put up nine points, six rebounds, three assists, and two steals.
The two ran a pick and roll to close the first quarter that ended with Reese finishing at the rim. A pick and roll is the play where one player sets a screen on her teammate’s defender and then cuts toward the basket for a pass. It requires two people reading each other in real time and trusting what the other is going to do, which is the whole reason the sequence traveled the way it did.
Later in the game Reese hit Clark on a fastbreak for an easy layup, and she joked about it afterward, saying Clark has found her so many times that she was probably finally due to return one, and that Clark finished it easily.
Reese has been saying versions of the same thing Clark said. She told TNT Sports that they have played against each other so many times that they know each other’s games like the back of their hands, which is what makes playing together fun. She pointed out they are going to be USA teammates for a while, so the chemistry is worth building. She also said the team has so much talent around them that it makes everything easy, that they are still figuring each other out, and that heading into the semifinals looking like this feels good.
For readers who have only encountered these two through the noise, the short version is that they met in the 2023 NCAA championship game when Clark was at Iowa and Reese was at LSU, entered the WNBA together in 2024 as the top two rookies, and have been treated as opposites ever since by fan bases that picked a side and stayed there. This is Berlin. Same jersey.
Both are making their World Cup debuts, two of seven first timers on this roster. Clark leads the team with 6.3 assists per game, third best in the whole tournament. In her debut against China on September 4 she put up 11 assists, the most ever by a USA player in a World Cup debut. Reese leads Team USA in offensive rebounds with nine and sits second on the team in both steals and blocks. The Americans went 3 and 0 in the group stage over China, Italy, and Czechia.
The younger group closing games for Team USA, Clark and Reese along with Paige Bueckers, Kiki Iriafen, and Sonia Citron, has picked up the nickname Young and Turnt.
Clark has already said where she wants this to lead. She is thinking about the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles and hopes a World Cup gold gets her a step closer to making her Olympic debut at home.
The semifinal is next.
