Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark was forced out of her team’s 85-77 win over the Connecticut Sun with an apparent groin injury in the final minutes of play.
After making a pass to teammate Kelsey Mitchell, Clark could be seen favouring her right thigh, before taking out some frustrations on the stanchion. The 23 year old then made her way to the bench and placed a towel over her head as teammates and coaches checked in on her.
Clark was 4 games into her return from a left groin injury prior to suffering the setback on Tuesday night. On the season, the dynamic guard has missed 10 of Indiana’s 23 contests thus far, including the Commissioner’s Cup championship.
Clark had also dealt with a quad strain back in May which sidelined the usually durable guard for several games as well. Prior to this year, Clark had never sat out a game in her Pro or College career, however her sophomore campaign has been challenging to say the least.
When asked after the game about the level of physicality that opponents seem to play with when guarding the former Hawkeye, head coach Stephanie White said “I’m not exactly sure why, but it just is what it is, and we’ve got to help her learn to adjust and use it against them in certain ways. We’ve got to find some ways to make it a little bit easier for her. But the level of physicality overall in our league has been at a different level than it’s been for a long time.”
The injury comes at terrible time from a league/viewership perspective as well, as the 2025 WNBA All-Star game is set to be held in Indianapolis on July 18-19th. Clark had been named an All-Star team captain and was set to participate in the 3 point contest on her home court as well.
With two days until the festivities kick off, Clark’s availability for the event will be very much in doubt. The Fever have yet to offer any additional updates or timelines for their star guard’s return to play. Indiana is next in action on Wednesday vs. the New York Liberty at 7:30pm ET.
Photo: John Mac. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.