A closer look at Caitlin Clark & Iowa's win over West Virginia 🧐 | NBA Today

Are you kidding me? If anything, refs allowed WV to play a very physical game where other refs would have called it a lot closer.

My first time watching Caitlin Clark live…that girl is GOOD man. She can ball fr 🔥🔥

Finesse vs mostly physical BB. It's not rocket science. If you are physically more aggressive you score more fouls.

Watch the sequence beginning at :20 and you get a sense for why WV was called for fouls. Count how many times the defenders uses her hands and arms to impede Clark's progress before they finally called a foul when they collided. This is how WVU played defense all game. They were allowed to do so most of the first half, which is why there was no offensive flow and Iowa scored a Clark era low of 26 in the first half. Also, there were 4 fouls and 8 free throws that occurred in the last 1:07 of this game that were intentional WV to send Iowa to the free throw line.

WV was playing aggressive defense and that tends to create more fouls. Early on the refs weren't calling them so when they started calling them WV cried, "Fowl"!

Bottom line WV came out to foul and 2 fouled out and 3 had 4 fouls and it was like a war!

Not unusual for West Virginia to have that many fouls. This wasn't the only game. Iowa played smart and forced many of those fouls. In effect, they turned WV strength into a scoring opportunity. If anything, I thought WV fouled more than what was called.

Like so many have already pointed out. WVU are a really good aggressive defensive team. That is their game plan, and they came in like a bulldozer and executed their game plan well. BUT being that aggressive has some draw backs and that is called Fouls! The refs called it right most of the time. WVU stayed in the game with this strategy BUT what they didn't count on was that Iowa was ON IT as far as making those FT. Good Game! Well Done Mountaineers. Congrats Hawkeyes!

At the end of the day, a win is a win

Quit fouling if you don’t want to be called on fouls. They were hacking a lot

I'm seeing a trend here, wow, you foul a player and they call it, what a concept...

respect to WV but they play bully ball. Looked like the Detroit Pistons.

Touch and go with the referee.. idiots, WV played aggressive D, which can cause more fouls. Just watch rather than see with a bias.

West Virginias wheelhouse is to play close and physical on defense. Press, get turnovers and capitalize on that. When they run an offense set, the shooter will pick up the tempo without “ripping square”. That is a dead give away for any defense to key on. Aggressive play and excessive fouls are a cost of doing business for any team that approaches the game that way. Since basketball is played against yourself, and your opponent is your potential. I seriously doubt if WV was being picked on by the refs. The contrast of both teams approach to the game shows in the foul column. It’s a game of physics, math, and psychology. WV was defeated in all three. One was of their own undoing, and a key dependent variable. That’s my opinion.

Makes sense how aggressive Virginia played

The difference was that West Virginia was obviously aggressive on defense and they literally fouled more that it should’ve been called while LSU created tacky fouls that should’ve been no calls and an defensive foul on Boldyreva that should’ve been an offensive foul on Reese. And this is coming from a MTSU student.

However, there were 57 fouls in the Princeton -West Virginia game. So, WV’s defense causes fouls…so why are you saying it was unfair advantage for Iowa?

Damian Lillard getting done bad by the education system.

GOATLIN CLARK THE MJ OF THE WNBA 💯 NO DOUBT

WVU tried to physically intimidate Clark. The refs called it correctly.

The defense displayed by West Virginia last night (and to a lesser degree against Holy Cross) - described as “aggressive defense” by the announcers - is not basketball as far as the rules define it. Clark was hammered - she was hacked consistently and they were clutching, grabbing, and bodying Clark all over the court. To say that the refs “let them play” is a gross understatement and by saying that it is just an excuse for condoning bad officiating. To be fair, Clark did get the calls in the second half last night against West Virginia that she deserved. And Iowa did shoot many more free throws than West Virginia (30-5) but when you play super aggressive defense and press a lot that results in a lot of fouls. I suspect West Virginia should have received more foul calls in the second half, but Iowa certainly should have received a lot more foul calls in the first half.

Caitlin clark is the best female basketball player in the world

They play hard, they are going to foul more. Do the analysts not understand that? There are bad calls in every game. Do the analysts not understand that? Lol cmon now check in.

West Virginia took a large number of shots from the perimeter (32 three-point attempts) while Iowa tried to pound the ball inside. When you're taking the ball to the rim a lot, you're going to draw a lot of fouls. Iowa's problem was that they turned the ball over a bunch in trying to work it inside -- turnovers that largely offset the points they were getting at the free-throw line --which was why the game was extremely close for the first 38 minutes. Iowa made some big plays in the final two minutes to win. If West Virginia had shot better from three-point range, they could/should have won the game.

Can’t wait for her to get to the W. If she can’t cope with aggressive play now…what WV did was nothing compared to what she is going to get in the W. She can push off don’t worry it won’t get called but she will get pushed back and believe me she will feel it it won’t be a flop. Plum might have been a scoring machine in the NCAA but the difference between the two is Plum will play beyond what WV did on defense. Good luck!

To any haters complaining about the foul/FT disparity, if you actually watched the entire game closely, there's actually legit reasons for it:
1. WVU presses full court for most of the game and has a much more aggressive and physical D than Iowa does. So they're much more likely to get steals AND commit fouls with the press, both of which happened.
2. Iowa mostly played zone defense, which leads to less fouling on average (and it's what some teams do when they're trying to protect someone in foul trouble) than playing man does.
3. Iowa was more aggressive on offense in terms of drives and post-ups, whereas WVU shot way more 3s than Iowa (12 more) and only had 1 non 3-pt FG attempt from WVU forwards the entire game, vs 7 for Iowa.
4. WVU committed 4-5 fouls on purpose when they were down with just over 1 minute left to extend the game.
5. Iowa averages 14 fouls/game this year, so their 11 fouls vs WVU isn't far off - you can chalk that up to a couple of missed calls in this game if you'd like. Iowa's opponents this year average 19 fouls/game, because Iowa is aggressive on offense as stated above; they're the #1 scoring team for a reason, and it isn't just from shooting 3s. And WVU's 27 fouls isn't actually far off from 19, after considering that 4-5 of them were on purpose towards the end. So that means 22-23 actual fouls, which also makes sense due to their aggressive D and press. Furthermore:
Iowa this year twice played Ohio St, who also presses full court but isn't quite as in-your-face physical and aggressive on D as WVU is, and in their games Ohio St was called for 23 and 24 fouls - and Ohio St only committed 1 foul on purpose total, in the 2nd game. So compare, after taking out fouling at the end of games when behind, Ohio St's 23 and 23 fouls called vs WVU's 22-23 fouls called. And on the other side, Iowa in those 2 Ohio St games got called for 23 and 11 fouls - they only got called for 23 in their 1st game because Ohio St went inside most of the game and only 30.6% of their shots were 3s, vs 54.8% of WVU's shots being 3s in this game; plus, Iowa got behind vs Ohio St and also had to foul on purpose a couple of times.
So all of these factors correctly add up to way more fouls on WVU. In fact, WVU was so physical with some contact that arguably more fouls could've/should've been called - but WVU fans/Iowa haters don't want to recognize that. However, there were a couple of ticky tack fouls on And-1s called in Iowa's favor as well, but by no means did they decide the outcome.
[edit: adding LSU-MTSU as another good example] Y'all haters keeping that same energy about LSU vs Middle Tenn, with their 37 to 9 free throw difference, and their 16 to 31 foul disparity? This is also a good analogy, because while MTSU isn't nearly as aggressive on D as WVU is, and LSU goes inside more than Iowa does, so the point here is that the more aggressive the offense (drives and dumping it inside), the more likely you'll get foul calls, and/or the more aggressive your D is, the more likely you'll get called for fouls. Just logic. And here's their stats that show this:
MTSU: 50% of their shots were 3s, and they shot 19 more 3s than LSU did. They had only 3 shots frontcourt players that weren't 3s.
LSU: Most of their shots weren't 3s, and their main inside presence Reese took 17 shots - a lot more opportunities to get fouled.
WVU was even more passive on offense than MTSU was, with 54.8% of their shots being 3s vs 50% for MTSU, and only 1 non-3 shot from frontcourt players vs 3 for MTSU. You're not gonna get many foul calls with those numbers. And LSU, like Iowa, took more shots that weren't 3s although obviously LSU took way less 3s. LSU also drove the lane a bunch just like Iowa did. So it makes sense why LSU had a 28 FT attempt difference (more than Iowa's 25), and a 15 foul difference (Iowa's was 16, but when you take out WVU fouls to stop the clock, it was only 11-12).

I hope Caitlin Clark cuts down the net at the end of the tournament. She's terrific.

Iowa vs LSU rematch goin go crazy

ESPN really needs to own up to their part in all this as well. Holly only there for Iowa? How one-sided was that. How about Jordan Harrison and Little-Page Bugs (Baylor) being great friends both in the tournament and won the Oklahoma State 4A Championship together. They have played together for years and this year with Harrison moving to a Power Five School not getting the offers she should have because she is “undersized” now they are putting her as a 16 pick in the 2026 draft. Also, how about this for Clark Harrison dropped 70 in a High School game once. How about as great as Quinnerly is she has stayed at WVU despite having 3 coaches in three years. ESPN refused to tell these women’s stories.

Caitlyn Clark needs a title for his resume for him to be a G.O.A.T. In eyes of ESPN powers of being after he was so hyped up by them. The games are fixed so he will win a championship at the cost of other superstars and teams. They tried last year but failed, knock out the superstar players and teams so they can talk only about him and today HANNAH was the victim

Any highlights of CC pushing off and not getting called for it? no? ok then.

Ill agree. I was yelling at the tv watching LSU go to the freethrow line all day long.....but as a Hawkeye, we got the same treatment. That said LSU is still better at getting the refs on their side.

Obviously none of you actually watched the game!
Well Just look at your own highlights that you're putting up there. It's not too hard to figure it out! Every time an Iowa player touched the ball.....there was a WV player mugging them. Reaching in. Reaching over or around. Blocking! It's pretty simple if any one of you watched the game.

It is total BS Clark pushed off more than a dozen times they called it once in the first when the Ref’s still thought WV was going to get skunked. The refereeing changed when they realized WV was hanging in there.

Robbery

The refs won ❤🎉😊

This is the 2nd worst show on ESPN. Can’t believe people watched this garbage

Women’s basketball is exciting but the refs sucks. All they do is call unnecessary fouls and travel calls

He's a great basketball player.