INDIANAPOLIS — When Indiana Fever fans returned to Gainbridge Fieldhouse for Saturday’s season opener, it seemed everything was back in place.
The street banners dotted the downtown landscape, the handmade signs were visible from any vantage point inside the sold out arena and, of course, Caitlin Clark jerseys and T-shirts remained a trendy favorite. And why not live it up as Clark’s 10-month wait to play a meaningful game on her home court finally ended with the weekend’s featured matchup between Clark and the Fever and Paige Bueckers and the Dallas Wings.
Yet even with the anticipation of seeing two of the league’s most popular players and the last four No. 1 draft picks squaring off in Game 1, nobody was excited to get started than Clark.
“I think there’s a different juice inside your body when you’re putting on your uniform and you’re mentally locked in to go and play a basketball game,” she said before tipoff. “Like I was excited for my teammates last year, 100% I was their biggest fan. But it’s not the same, it just isn’t. I missed having the butterflies in my stomach before a game. Like I love that, and that means you’re ready.”
The WNBA schedule makers certainly gave fans what they wanted following an offseason filled with collective bargaining agreement negotiations and uncertainty about this year’s action.
By Friday night, it was all in the past. Two old rivals, the New York Liberty and Connecticut Sun, played the first game of the league’s 30th season with two potentially budding rivals, the Seattle Storm and Golden State Valkyries, capping the night in the third and final game. In between, fans got their first glimpse of the expansion Toronto Tempo against Washington.
That set up Saturday’s nationally televised matinee between Clark and Bueckers, and it didn’t disappoint.
Clark scored 10 of her 20 points in the third quarter to help the Fever rally from a 60-51 halftime deficit, but she missed a logo 3-pointer that would have tied the score at 107 with 4.5 seconds left in the game. The former Iowa star finished 2 of 9 on 3s as the Wings held on for a 107-104 victory.
She also had seven assists, five rebounds and joined the 1,000-point club while Bueckers finished with 20 points despite missing two free throws with 1.6 seconds left. Azzi Fudd, this year’s No. 1 draft pick, took only two shots in 18 minutes, making a 3 for the only points in her regular-season debut.
Clark also gave fans another injury scare. She briefly left the bench twice in the second half to have her back worked on but managed to finish the game, something she did not do in last week’s preseason game against Dallas after banging her kneecap hard on a fall.
“I feel good, started off a little slow I think just the anxiety of the first game,” she said. “Felt like I was literally just a couple of buckets away from putting together a really, really good game and getting a win.”
The result didn’t temper the fanfare surrounding this game, though.
Clark and her teammates walked down the stairs and through the crowd to the court for player introductions with the loudest roar, naturally, reserved for Clark.
“I’m getting chills right now just thinking about where we are as a league,” Fever coach Stephanie White said. “I mean this is what we dreamed about, right? From the time I was a rookie in this league to the time we won a championship in 2012 (with the Fever) when we were seeing sold out arenas only in championship games or in Finals games to becoming mainstream.”
While Clark played a big role in making sellouts the norm — in college and the WNBA — it’s not just about Clark anymore.
Saturday’s crowd included a small group in UConn jerseys, a nod to both Bueckers and Fudd, while another had a cutout of Bueckers on a sign saying she’d skipped her prom to attend the game. And there was a smattering of Bueckers fans dressed in Dallas jerseys, too.
“It’s huge. I watched a lot of the games on YouTube TV las night so to be able to play on national television where a lot more people have access to it,” Bueckers said. “There’s way more accessibility to it than when I was growing up watching the Minnesota Lynx. There wasn’t as much national television coverage, you didn’t see shows about it, you didn’t so much on social media.”
But the addition of Bueckers, last year’s WNBA Rookie of the Year, and the return of Clark, the 2024 WNBA Rookie of the Year, from a season-ending groin injury have the league poised for potentially its biggest season yet.
And the opening weekend fanfare had a little bit of everything — David Letterman and NBA All-Star Tyrese Haliburton sitting courtside, a moment to honor some of the pioneers from the Women’s Professional Basketball League and Fever players walking through the crowd to the court during player introductions with the two biggest roars reserved for Clark and Bueckers.
“I think it’s great for women’s basketball more than anything,” Clark said referring to the four No. 1 picks — Fever center Aliyah Boston in 2023, herself in 2024, Bueckers last year and now Fudd. “And you know this might be the first time this has ever really happened in sports — having two No. 1 picks on both sides. I think it speaks to the young talent in this league, how excited fans are about them and how excited they are about these two teams having us match up in the first game of the season.”
