Angel Reese insists there’s no ill will between her and Caitlin Clark.
Reese opened up about her longtime rivalry with Clark while speaking at ComplexCon.
“I don’t have any hard feelings toward her and she doesn’t have any hard feelings towards me,” Reese said. “It’s just basketball and it gets crazy sometimes.”
The two began competing against each other in high school and subsequently emerged as women’s basketball’s biggest stars in college and now in the WNBA.
Clark beat Reese to the WNBA Rookie of the Year award this past season, but Reese’s LSU defeated Clark’s Iowa in the NCAA Tournament national title game in 2023.
The Fever selected Clark with the No. 1 overall pick in last year’s draft, while Reese went No. 7 overall to the Sky.
“I’ve been playing against Caitlin since we were probably in eighth or ninth grade,” Reese said. “We were both really competitive. “I went to Maryland [before transferring to LSU], she went to Iowa and we competed there, so people don’t know the legacy of us being able to play against each other for a really long time.”
Reese also commented on the treatment she gets from Fever and Clark fans.
“Sometimes it’s very disrespectful,” Reese said. “Obviously social media is going to put two women against each other and I think that it’s something that’s been negative but also positive.
“It shines light on women’s basketball so I’ll take that, being the person that gets the hate. But at the end of the day I know I’m the person that’s growing basketball and helping women’s basketball.”