Male sports media disgraces itself in attempts to cover Caitlin Clark's rookie WNBA season

Any question whether Caitlin Clark, the star rookie with the WNBA's Indiana Fever, brings the best out of her opponents vanishes with a close look at the stats.

Clark, who averaged 31.6 points per game on 45.5 per cent shooting during her supernova final season at the University of Iowa, is putting up 15.6 points in her first 11 WNBA games, converting 35.7 per cent of her field goal attempts. Part of the statistical drop-off owes to the jump from college to pro. The WNBA, for now, includes just 12 teams, and only 144 active roster spots. If your numbers drop off early in your rookie season, that's not a cause to panic. It's just life on the other side of the bottleneck.

But people more knowledgeable about basketball than I am also point out that teams employ defensive blitzes against Clark regularly. Disproportionately. Nearly 60 times in the season's first two weeks, according to one sharp-eyed analyst. When other teams know they're facing Clark, who is among the highest-profile rookies in the league's history, they know to bring their stingiest defence.

As for Clark, who led Iowa to the NCAA championship game this past season, she's a rookie but she's still a pro. She'll adjust, eventually.

But male-dominated mainstream media outlets tasked with covering a historic WNBA season, in which Clark is a central character, face a similarly steep learning curve.

And they're struggling.

Monday's Pat McAfee Show opened with a Caitlin Clark PowerPoint:<br><br>"I would like the media people that continue to say, 'This rookie class, this rookie class, this rookie class'. Nah, just call it for what it is — there's one white bitch for the Indiana team who is a superstar." <a