HortNation🍢🐤

Health insurance advisor & freelance sports writer. Chiefs, Kings, A’s, Hawkeyes 🐤, Seminoles 🍢. Football Referee 🦓 & Prince fan. Proud Independent.

[David Burge @iowahawkblog]

This is Noah Shannon, model citizen, slated to be Hawkeye senior defensive captain 2023. He had guilt pangs for having bet $10 on the Iowa Women's Basketball team in the 2023 NCAA tournament. The only bet he ever made. He turned himself in to coaches for the transgression who forwarded it to the NCAA.

They ruled him inelligible for the entire season, effectively ending his career. If the NCAA allows someone else to play after making thousands of bets, including many on his own team, I am going to fucking riot

[Chris @chiefs_outsider]

Playoff record in seasons without a top 8 defense, what do you notice?

[Becca 🎧 @BeccaRBRoyalty]

Happy Heavenly Birthday to His Royal Badness, the incomparable Prince Rogers Nelson! Ƭ̵̬̊

[HortNation🍢🐤 @Short58C]

https://t.co/9CyT5JhjpD

[HortNation🍢🐤 @Short58C]

@jonbream @TheMorrisDay @JamAndLewis @prince @ArmoryMn Morris was outstanding last night

[UTAH NOLE 🍢 @Utah_Nole]

This is why Florida State remains a destination blue blood in College Baseball.

[HortNation🍢🐤 @Short58C]

@AriyaMassoudi @SundayGoldsPod @FSUBaseball You do a great job!

[Sports Patriot @SportsPatriotUS]

I’m going to say this as calmly as possible:

Watching Caitlin Clark in the WNBA has become genuinely hard to stomach.

Not because she struggles sometimes. Not because she makes mistakes. Not because she gets criticized. That comes with being great.

It’s hard to stomach because it has become obvious that the league, the officials, the media, the players, and even her own organization have all decided that the most important thing is not letting Caitlin Clark become too big.

And that is insane.

This league was handed the most marketable, electric, revenue-generating player women’s basketball has ever seen, and instead of building around the moment, too many people seem obsessed with humbling her.

She gets fouled. Held. Hit. Cheap-shotted. Mocked. Targeted. Then when she reacts like a normal competitor, suddenly everyone wants to analyze her attitude.

No.

Her attitude is not the story.

The story is that a generational player is being treated like a problem by the very league she helped drag into mainstream relevance.

This reminds me of the worst kind of youth coach... the one who sees a special player, feels threatened by her talent, and slowly drains the joy out of her in the name of “teaching humility.”

That is what this looks like.

The freedom she played with at Iowa is disappearing. The fire is still there, but the joy looks damaged. The confidence looks weighed down. She looks like someone constantly fighting the refs, opponents, narratives, coaching decisions, jealousy, and a league culture that should be protecting its golden opportunity instead of resenting it.

And let’s be honest: Stephanie White has not helped.

Benching Caitlin Clark randomly when she is controlling the game tempo, or having your best shooter off the floor in critical game ending minutes when a victory is within reach is basketball malpractice. Limiting her rhythm, downplaying her greatness, benching momentum, and treating her like just another piece instead of the engine is absurd.

You do not take a player who changed the economics of your sport and manage her like you’re afraid her greatness might offend the room.

Nike deserves criticism too. Other players get signature shoes rolled out with urgency, while the biggest draw in women’s basketball is somehow still waiting on that signature shoe. That is not confusing. That is revealing.

Fans are not stupid.

They see the fouls.
They see the double standards.
They see the jealousy.
They see the media resentment.
They see the league benefiting from her popularity while refusing to fully embrace her.
And here is the part the WNBA better understand quickly:
People are not tuning in to watch Caitlin Clark be humbled.
They are tuning in to watch Caitlin Clark be great.
If she walked away tomorrow, the fans would follow her. The sponsors would follow her. The energy would follow her. The high salaries and the charter jets would follow her. And the league would be forced to confront the uncomfortable truth it keeps trying to avoid:

Caitlin Clark did not need the WNBA nearly as much as the WNBA needed Caitlin Clark.

At some point, her family, her agent, and her team need to ask a hard question:

How much longer do you let a league profit from her while allowing the culture around her to beat the spirit out of her?

Because from the outside looking in, this does not look like normal adversity anymore. It looks like abuse.

It looks like a league trying to break the very player who made millions of people care.

https://t.co/AAxFrO46Z4

[HortNation🍢🐤 @Short58C]

@Tkachukdeeznuts @brettpn Backwards K on what appeared to be a high breaking ball after a great at bat. Earlier had a backwards K on a low pitch. I think both were full counts.

[HortNation🍢🐤 @Short58C]

@CurtMWeiler It felt like a lot like the Pitt game last week. Hopefully guys will step up and FSU can bounce back.

[HortNation🍢🐤 @Short58C]

@CurtMWeiler Bullpen is to blame like usual.

[HortNation🍢🐤 @Short58C]

@904eric @brettpn Abraham probably threw at least 8 in the dirt. Idk if the greatest catcher of all time could’ve blocked a few of them.

[HortNation🍢🐤 @Short58C]

@NoleGIFs Idk if there’s a right answer if our offense doesn’t score runs. I guess I’d try to save Wes for Coastal.

[Super 70s Sports @Super70sSports]

What was with our society’s obsession with quicksand when we were kids? At the time I genuinely believed it was one of the world’s leading causes of death. Every birthday marked another 365 days of somehow avoiding quicksand,

[HortNation🍢🐤 @Short58C]

@DudyNobleField Remember when Y’all got dog walked in Tally last year?

[HortNation🍢🐤 @Short58C]

@EmmanuelLantig6 Why give up after one year? Grass isn’t always greener.

[HortNation🍢🐤 @Short58C]

@ben_stana Alabama not Florida

[Jacob Rudner @JacobRudner]

Mercer missing the field is bad for college baseball.

If a mid-major can win 44 games, finish top 30 in RPI, rank among the national leaders in homers and still miss, what exactly is the path supposed to be outside the power conferences?

Column: https://t.co/S37EUPSVzn

[HortNation🍢🐤 @Short58C]

@CBCJakeMck Disrespecting the defending national runner up is insane.

[James Tate @JamesTate121]

Community note for the win.🤣