Grab Bag
A somewhat comprehensive list of basketball grievances
We’ve reached the sort of miasmatic days on the college hoops calendar where a lot of nothing is happening. Players are in individuals, coaches are homed for the year and there’s no actual basketball business to take care of, but there is plenty of basketball happening on the peripherals of the collegiate game. Danny Hurley becoming the first person I’m aware of to spurn Los Angels for Storrs, Connecticut might be among these things.
So with that in mind, this week’s first item for business will be a non-exclusive listing of random basketball to-dos that require some level of comment.
Caitlin Clark
I don’t know how much more ink is going to be spilt or minutes of television devoted to the topic of Caitlin Clark and What She Means, but I do know this: everyone’s wrong. I’m wrong, you’re wrong, the mailman is wrong, that dude that stands on the corner and hollers at traffic until the cops show up is wrong, all of us. In the interest of devoting no more ham-fisted ineptitude to a subject that I’m only just now becoming well-versed in while simultaneously regurgitating my thoughts for the public, I’ma just shut up. If everyone followed my lead, I think we could get back to a fairly reasonable level of discourse about Clark, her difficult rookie season, the lumps she’s taking and the fact that she is not within hollering distance of earning a spot on the Olympic team yet, regardless of how well the optics might play in Middle America. Last I checked, being on the Olympic team was an honor reserved for the best dozen or so players in the country, a status Clark will likely be able to claim in due time but isn’t at quite yet. She is good; the trajectory remains excellent. We’re approaching two weeks of this discourse now and I am at a loss for how anyone continues to mine disrespect or meaning from the subject of Caitlin Clark, Hooper, without replacing the Hooper part with something Caitlin Clark ain’t ask to be and ain’t trying to be1.