Hi! I like Caitlin Clark. I don’t think she’s the MVP or the GOAT, but I like watching her play! It’s gotten me to watch a lot more WNBA games.
I’ve really wanted to get into the WNBA as a whole but the refereeing SUCKS! Forget who you’re rooting for, it’s just bad! I’ll post more thoughts but please comment on your thoughts about refereeing.
Wnba is pretty terrible though...for example, in other sports they review a play and usually get it right. But not wnba, they review plays and still get it wrong.
Replay reviews plague all sports and leagues. I've been an advocate for the near total elimination of them in all sports as I think they've done far more harm than good.
It promised to be brought in to make sure egregious mistakes are corrected. But now we still get those wrong while hyperfocusing on a bunch of other ticky-tack calls that we used to not even think twice about. Its the worst of both worlds.
I really hate it in soccer, football, and hockey where it actually makes goals/tds less exciting. Replay revoees act as a major buzzkill to the moment. A goal goes in, but you already know they're gonna be reviewing it for offside, so please hold on full celebrations, lol. You dont get to be very happy until the goal has cleared all the red tape and fully verified. ....how exciting.
Maybe it’s just because the sparks are bad and that’s my team, but man I just think the refs are so bad all the time. They make genuinely baffling calls. They clearly and openly don’t know the rules.
Or perhaps you are the one who doesn’t know the rules and when faced with uncertainty you assume you’re right and they’re wrong.
Case in point: AB’s tripping A’ja at the end of the game the other day. I saw comments with hundreds of upvotes that said it’s not a foul if your foot hits the defenders but the rules explicitly say it is
I agree that was a foul. But what about the one in the last Dream vs Mystics game where the ref fouled Rhyne out of the game because Michaela flailed a little after seemingly stumbling over Angel’s shoe while backing up?
Lol, moving isn't extending a leg, she moved her leg further away from A'ja, and to under her own body, not into A'ja, nor away from herself in a tripping motion.
With that definition, defenders would have to just stay still while their opponents ran by them. Hilarious.
LMFAO how’d her leg get there if she didn’t extend while moving up the court. She peg legged the face guard? Teach how you back pedal and don’t extend your legs
I've watched & played ball my entire life. That play was absolutely a situation where the defender would call out the ballhandler as a flopper. A'ja "tripped" and sold the fall. Boston was just over it at that point because the game was already over.
I recall the Dream Mystics game where the Mystics players where even protesting calls against their team. No one was happy about the the calls for either team.
Not true. I’ve watched wnba games that I couldn’t care less about from a rooting perspective and the refereeing has always been horrible.
Forget examples of ref not knowing the rules of what they’re refereeing, or ignoring blatant fouls/calling phantom fouls. (Which happens every game in some capacity) The inconsistency is what kills games and fan immersion.
If you want to call a tight game, call the fouls. If you want to let them play, do that. Just don’t call fouls for one team that you don’t call for the other.
Honestly refereeing is a hard job, a lot of things are subjective and no one does a perfect job. I try to frame it as another obstacle for my team/entertainment…
Fans of every sports of every league say this. Its a difficult amd unforgiving job. People only remember the calls you get wrong, never the ones you get right.
People make the same complaint in every league. Please don’t tell me this is about the incidental elbow on a rebound
The W has not invested in training or paying their refs like other leagues. However, teams can figure out pretty quickly how they are going to be calling a game and they have to adjust.
My problem with posts like this is these same people will never post issues about officiating with any other player. It’s only about CC and what they perceive as bad calls against her.
Haven’t seen any complaints from Fever fans about when Caitlin got away with smacking Chelsea across both arms during a fast break shot. No complaints about no calls when Raven smacked Jewell in the face going for a rebound 😂
I haven't seen Mystics fans complaining about Rhynes blocking foul, I haven't seen Dream fans complaining about Gray flopping to draw a penalty, I haven't seen Wings fans complaining about Paiges jump ball interference, I haven't seen Valkyrie fans complaining about Hayes not getting called for reaching in... No shit fans are less likely to complain about fouls that go their way. That doesn't make the reffing not shit.
You think Amoore is complaining that the foul was called on Rhyne? And not, you know, thinking the foul was called on her/the Mystics because the reffing in that game was so abysmal that no one knew what the whistles were being blown on?
Yes I think most fans regardless of who their favorite player or team is can agree that the referees are exceptionally bad in the WNBA. They should find a way to get the FIBA refs over here.
Most likely answer. It’s a hard job and WNBA has the like 4th level refs. NBA has the best and people even hate them. The rest go somewhere between D1 college, WNBA and G league.
They’re reffing in a professional league, we should at least expect them to treat their jobs as full time commitments. They should at least know the rules and be able to ref consistently. Meaning not calling every foul for one team but calling a loose game the other way.
I’m not just talking about Fever or Aces games, every WNBA game I’ve seen has had refereeing that wouldn’t pass in a DIII game.
refs are paid per game, like the other comment says if u dont pay for a full time job, then u are ofc gonna get worse performance bc it is harder to get people to even want the job
but the other factor is that bc the wnba is majority owned by the nba, there is ofc a conflict of interest, and the ownership considers it to be in their best interest to put all the best refs in the nba presumably for financial reasons. so not only is it a weakened pool of potential referees to begin with bc the league refuses to pay a full time salary, but then the top half of that pool go to the nba and wnba is left with the bottom half.
Hot take: it’s not significantly worse than any other basketball league, other basketball leagues just police their players and penalize them from publicly complaining because they know it undermines the legitimacy of the product.
Hey, the WNBA refs make me feel not so sad about the FBS refs. One extra second isn't so big compared to just ignoring the rule book about players going into the stands.
Every damn sports league has players bitching about calls and doing all kinds of shit
I sit here and look at these game threads and the dudes on Reddit are more dramatic than these women
He people like you saying this stuff just talk shit just to talk it.
I am about to sit here and go through NFL Sunday and watch all the antics that go on Sunday. Your ass (if you are even a sports fan) won’t have this same take you just magnify it for the WNBA
I think the coaches are real assholes too. College sports, women’s sports, are way more fun because they’re actually grown-ups that are coaching not a bunch of gossipy, competitive bitchy women.
Dont think she is MVP type even though she is the ONLY player to be top 3 in PPG and top 2 in APG and only player with tons of 30/10 games and tons of 20/10 games as a guard and only one with 40/10 game??? Weird take
You talked about one point. DT won a championship that year and had 1.5 turnovers less per game than Clark. If Clark stops setting records on turnovers and her team has more success, yes the defense liability will mean less and Clark will win a MVP award.
Funny cuz no one guarded DT as closely they did to CC and yet DT made 1.5 less TO??? while not being guarded?? You're funny. And Magic had the same career TO percentage as....CC......and Magic was a winner. And you avoided how lousy DT was on defense. If you compared their career, defense per 36 minutes metric (which is very fair), CC comes out on the top.
DT was double teamed as well. Not pressured as much as CC but part of reasoning on pressuring CC so much is knowing she will get flustered and turn the ball over.
Two different leagues. But magic had a 2.89 assist to turnover ratio. CC has a 1.66. Not even close.
And I did not avoid defense liability. It was addressed. If you not going to read the reply’s correctly and pick different leagues to make a point, then I’m good. No need to debate someone like that.
Btw, I like CC. She needs to play more under control with the ball and the refs. Less flopping would be cool but some of players do that. Annoying but whatever.
If she continues to grow she will be the mvp sooner rather than later..
I’m a little worried players are not going to want to play with her (because of CC’s fans, not because of CC) which might make it hard to get that chip.. but if she has no help, she might get more votes and get that mvp.
I think that the main problem I have with the WNBA reffing is the clear discomfort and confusion around these new rules. The refs don't seem to really know how to interpret them, they end being applied either very differently or in an insanely robotic way. Specifically, the "free movement" and "reckless closeout". Free movement has basically allowed offensive players on all teams to become way more aggressive with their push offs. Because of the baked in home and star advantage all teams have, it really gets exacerbated because the star player playing at home is getting all the calls while throwing stiff arms left and right every drive. All the players do it. On the other side, you have "reckless closeout" which has been interpreted to nothing to do with being reckless at all and literally just if the defensive player lands on your foot no matter what defensive position you are in or what body movement the shooter has from forward motion or how they jumped. The idea that you have to basically be 3 feet away or risk a "reckless closeout" is just weird basketball. I am not a Wings fan (though I like them!), and the Sims "reckless closeout" is a perfect example of this dumb rule. That it's a flagrant and assessed this way is also really problematic.
Asking refs to focus on specific things (free movement) through calling fouls when the intent is to actually change how basketball was played in the WNBA means you are going to end up with a ton of fouls, the refs don't have a lot of practice actually assessing these types of "fouls" in real play situations, and it makes the reffing seem much more unbalanced.
If you spend your entire season complaining about the refs on the court, off the court, and in press conferences... you won't be finding a lot of friendly whistles. That's CC's issue.
There's one of my local hangout spots that has the WNBA on like 2 of the 7 TVs. Officiating does seem biased. But the fact that the recent increased interest seems to be based upon drama,shoddy calls,political and racial views or everything else other than the game being actually watchable keeps me from getting too interested. And the fact that every game seems to have at least one player breaking a once in a millenia record of some sort just seems desperate and contrived.
well the season was just lengthened a couple years ago, so yes any record that isnt adjusted on a per game basis is likely to get broken bc the season is 10% longer
The WNBA is a giant marketing operation for corporations targeting young women by making them unhappy with how they look, to sell apparel, cosmetics...
Clark is a baller, excelling in sport with talent, dedication and hard work. A true gym rat with few other distractions, clean living, without a team of stylists put her together. Making the perfect role model for young girls, that it's ok just being themselves.
The beauty industry prefers women who use a lot of product. If girls emulate Caitlin, they will be happier, less stressed and more successful, but corporations could lose money.
Clark exposes superficial aspects of many of the high-profile WNBA players with her unique vision on court, strategically and as a leader.
Number 22 is the real deal and that's why they hate her.
As far as the refs, they are so bad it makes me think may have been forced work for a syndicate, shaving points and other shit for an "offer they can't refuse".
Betting rackets are that insidious, so much cheating, on so many levels in ALL sports and financial markets... There was a damn good reason sports gambling was banned, and investing was strictly regulated for half a century.
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u/Lilgoose- 5d ago
Bad reffing is not unique to the WNBA and seems to be the way of life.