INDIANAPOLIS — The night started off exactly as anticipated. Fans inside Gainbridge Fieldhouse erupted by the time Caitlin Clark was introduced for the Fever’s home opener against the Liberty.
There were the smaller, homemade signs.
The jerseys, the roar, the anticipation. All of it.
But for as much as the buildup to Thursday’s game provided a glimpse of the jolt Clark will provide for both the Fever and the WNBA, the 40 minutes that followed in the Liberty’s 102-66 win at Gainbridge Fieldhouse captured just how difficult the rookie’s transition will still be.
Clark, the No. 1 overall pick, scored two points on 1-for-5 shooting in the first half and finished with just nine.
She has compiled just 29 through two games.
There were flashes of her vintage form, though, such as when she connected on a step-back 3-pointer with just over 90 seconds remaining in the third quarter or when she scored seven of the Fever’s final nine points to close that frame.
She maneuvered passes to cutting teammates and found ways to draw fouls while driving, too.
But it still resulted in an underwhelming stat line and wasn’t enough when Breanna Stewart scored 31 points, Sabrina Ionescu added 14 and Jonquel Jones produced a double-double.
The Liberty (2-0) started a small winning streak to open their 2024 campaign.
Still, more than anything, this was Clark’s home opener, and the palpable enthusiasm oozing throughout the arena transcended her numbers.
She could sense that even while driving to the arena.
She saw the fans, the ones who were part of a collective group that immediately bought season tickets after the Fever (0-2) secured the No. 1 overall pick and Clark declared for the WNBA after her senior season with the Hawkeyes.
“It’s just like a great buzz, people are excited,” Clark said pregame. “For me, it’s fun. You look around, you soak it in and you can’t really script it any better.”
That’ll become a familiar scene.
The Fever are a rebuilding franchise, compiling two No. 1 picks in a row.
Clark debuted Tuesday in a loss to the Sun, committing 10 turnovers and also adding 20 points, but it was different two days later.
Those miscues, if everything unfolds similar to her time with Iowa, will become afterthoughts once the growing pains subside.
“It’ll always be something for me as like where you play your first WNBA game at,” Clark said pregame. “It will always be at Connecticut. That’ll just be something that you remember and cherish. Hopefully looking back, like my 10 turnovers will be something that I can laugh about when my career ends and hopefully I clean it up a little bit, but I think that’ll be something I remember — but also my first home opener will be kind of up there just the same.”
Tucked on the other side of Monument Circle and Meridian Street, a 10-minute walk from Gainbridge Fieldhouse across the sidewalks that’ll be filled with Clark’s No. 22 for years to come, a Gatorade banner tacked to the Hyatt Regency hotel.
If there was anything that captured what has descended on the city since the WNBA draft, that massive poster was it.
It stretched floor after floor after floor up the hotel.
Clark holds a Gatorade towel around her neck, with the message, “It is just getting started” printed across it — a fitting tone ahead of her home opener.
The Caitlin Clark Show in Indiana — an extension of what transpired across her years with Iowa — had begun, even if it started with a loss.
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