UNCASVILLE, Conn. — As the seconds ticked down before her first WNBA game began, Caitlin Clark couldn’t stop moving. Waiting for the opening jump, she paced along the free throw line. She tugged at her shorts and fixed her ponytail. She swung her arms in an attempt to stay loose.

Then the ref tossed the orange and white WNBA basketball, but officials deemed it needed to be thrown a second time. Unlike the official’s toss, Clark might not want a complete redo of her debut. Still, there were definitely moments she will want back from a mixed individual performance and, ultimately, a disappointing loss.

She led the Indiana Fever with 20 points, yet she also notched 10 turnovers — the most ever in a player’s first WNBA game.

“I didn’t have the greatest start, so I think (there’s) just a lot to learn from,” Clark said. “There’s gonna be good ones. There’s gonna be bad ones.”

Caitlin Clark scored her first professional points with 5:24 to play in the first half, hitting a layup. ⁦@TheAthleticWBB⁩ pic.twitter.com/BqamXt3GBj

— Ben Pickman (@benpickman) May 15, 2024

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She rewrote the record book over four years at Iowa, often making the hardest matchups and most difficult shots look like a breeze. Tuesday’s inglorious record was not expected. Just over a month has passed since Clark’s college career concluded, but life in the WNBA is here. If a reminder was needed, she showed in the Fever’s 92-71 defeat to the Connecticut Sun that she’ll, at times, have growing pains as she transitions into the professional ranks.

“She’s a rookie in this league,” Fever coach Christie Sides said. “This is the best league in the world. We’ve got to teach her what these games are gonna look like for her every single night and we’ve got to eliminate some of that pressure for her. That’s on me, that’s on my staff to have to figure out.”

All eyes are on Clark as she attempts to jump to the pros with high expectations to not just perform like she did in college but invigorate the league in a way no player has before. Tuesday’s season tipoff was in front of the Sun’s first home-opener sellout since 2003, and she’ll make her home debut in front of another raucous crowd Thursday. At Connecticut, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of fans wore No. 22 T-shirts with Iowa and Fever logos on them to celebrate Clark. (At one point, a “bandwagon fan” graphic appeared on the Sun video board while showing many of them on the screen.) Fans with “Clark Fever” shirts started wandering the Mohegan Sun casino floor hours before the evening tipoff. The game’s television rating is sure to be far higher than last season’s openers.

It’s a scene Clark witnessed at nearly every game during her senior season at Iowa.

“I played in sold-out crowds literally every single game, so these environments don’t scare me or impact me at all,” she said Tuesday morning. “I’m sure there will be just like a lot of basketball fans here that really appreciate the game.”

the fans are showing out in Connecticut tonight 🙌 pic.twitter.com/7CECWVIFSJ

— Indiana Fever (@IndianaFever) May 14, 2024

Yet even with that familiarity, on the morning of the most highly anticipated rookie debut in WNBA history, she attempted to temper expectations.

“I know the outside world thinks I’m gonna do some amazing things, but that might take some time,” Clark said. “And if things aren’t perfect right away or one game’s not as amazing as I want it to be, give yourself grace, continue to learn, continue to get better from it.”

Almost immediately, Clark was welcomed to the WNBA by one of the world’s best players. Less than two minutes in, Sun star forward Alyssa Thomas attacked Clark in transition, forcing the 6-foot guard into a foul. After picking up two fouls, Clark ended the first quarter scoreless. She admitted regaining her flow was tough after sitting some early.

Clark had said “it would be nice” for her first career basket to come on a layup, but she couldn’t have envisioned waiting until the 5:24 mark of the second quarter to score. As she walked to the locker room at halftime, trailing by 10 points, reigning Rookie of the Year Aliyah Boston grabbed Clark’s attention.

“(Boston) said just be calm, be aggressive and be you,” Clark said.

Clark made some uncharacteristic errors, picking up the basketball and traveling, dribbling it off her foot and throwing an errant inbounds pass. She has room to improve defensively, as well. Playing an experienced opponent, Connecticut’s physicality made a difference. Sides said Indiana was “punched in the mouth.”

Clark eventually settled in, taking advantage of switches. She hit a late fourth-quarter 3-pointer over Sun center Olivia Nelson-Ododa on a shot reminiscent of her time with the Hawkeyes. Still, the Fever played the entire night in catch-up mode, trailing for the game’s final 34 minutes. A stretch in the fourth quarter in which Thomas guarded Clark provided another data point that Clark’s competition level had increased.

There’s plenty of tape for Clark to devour now, and not much time to do it. Sides stressed that Indiana’s spacing was poor, and that it needs to find ways to get Boston easier looks (she attempted only six shots and scored just 4 points). Clark’s teammates have to do a better job of coming back to the ball on her passes. Cutting down on turnovers — the Fever had 25 — will also be imperative.

Opportunities to show immediate growth will come soon and often. Indiana opens the season with seven games in 12 days. The New York Liberty await Thursday night, another stiff challenge in a run of them.

Some performances will inevitably pale in comparison to others. A Clark masterclass will surely come sooner than later. But Tuesday emphasized what her new competition is like. How she responds will be her biggest challenge.

“Disappointed and nobody likes to lose, that’s how it is,” Clark said. “Can’t beat yourself up too much about one game.”

(Photo: Elsa / Getty Images)

It’s been 16 years since Shawn Johnson, then just a 4-foot-11, 16-year-old, won the hearts of Americans by winning gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Johnson was the gold medalist on the balance beam and earned three silvers in the floor, all-around (losing to teammate Nastia Liukin) and team events (Liukin also won silver in the balance beam).

It was the only Olympic Games Johnson would compete in. She tore her ACL skiing in 2010 and retired from the sport amid a comeback for the 2012 games. However, she lived out the moment she “dreamt of my whole life.”

Johnson earned the rare opportunity to represent the United States; wear the red, white, and blue; and hear her country’s national anthem with Olympic gold draped around her neck.

“It was the greatest honor of my life at the time,” Johnson said in a recent interview with Fox News Digital, adding that having children has trumped that experience.

“Being able to wear the red, white and blue, seeing the flag be lowered, hearing the anthem, put your hand over your chest. It was this moment I had dreamt of my whole life. And being able to do that not just for myself, but for my coaches and my team and our country, it was a really special moment. It felt very special.”

Shawn Johnson, left, and Nastia Liukin of the U.S. stand on the podium after the women’s balance beam final of the artistic gymnastics event of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing Aug. 19, 2008. (Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)

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Johnson will be in Paris this summer for the Olympics with her family for what she described as a “full-circle moment” that’s admittedly “cliché and cheesy.”

But she says she will be a “giant cheerleader.”

“I feel like its such a small world that I know the girls through a couple degrees of separation. I’m an old has-been. I’m not in it anymore, but I will be there cheering for them and will be the one saying, ‘No matter what you do, you’ve done an incredible job.’ They’re superhuman, and I’m just cheering them on.”

Johnson’s attendance at the games comes at maybe the peak of women’s sports. Women’s gymnastics is always must-watch television every four years, but this time, it’s a bit different.

Shawn Johnson of the U.S. in action during her gold medal win in the women’s balance beam final at National Indoor Stadium in Beijing, China. (Al Tielemans/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)

“Me, as a mother to a daughter, I’m so excited. I don’t know what it means in particular. I just love that women’s sports are getting the attention they deserve,” Johnson said. 

“I think every athlete, male or female, that works their entire life to get to the Olympic Games deserves a platform and the attention that they worked for. I think being able to go into these Olympic Games with that shared excitement across all platforms, both genders, I think is really, really cool.”

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Nobody would budge through the first three quarters. The Sparks would go on a run, the Atlanta Dream would respond with one of their own, and vice versa. They were deadlocked at 66 going into the fourth quarter of the teams’ season opener Wednesday night, neither giving the other any breathing room. Then, the fourth quarter happened.

Cheyenne Parker-Tyus and Crystal Dangerfield hit back-to-back layups to open the fourth. Then Rhyne Howard made some free throws and followed them with a three. All of a sudden, the Dream were up double digits before the Sparks scored in the final period.

“Basketball is a game of runs,” guard Kia Nurse said of the Sparks’ fourth-quarter cold streak. “We kind of just weren’t going. We didn’t hit enough shots in that situation and defensively, we didn’t get stops … That’ll be something we look at on film just to say where we could have been better in that situation, knowing that that’s something you can fix.”

There were moments of life, a huge three-pointer from rookie Cameron Brink to bring the Sparks within six with a minute to go, but that was as close as they would get. The Dream held on to earn a 92-81 win at the Walter Pyramid in Long Beach. The venue seats 5,000 people, and the Sparks announced the contest was sold out.

“I take it as my responsibility that a lot of the starters got tired at the end of the third quarter. I had to substitute more players at one time in the start of the fourth quarter than I would’ve liked,” Sparks coach Curt Miller said after the game. “Ultimately, it was a hard situation to dig out of, but we never quit. We really battled and showed our scrappiness that we’re going to be defined by this year.”

Dearica Hamby paced the young Sparks with 20 points and 14 rebounds, while point guard Layshia Clarendon finished with a first career triple-double — 11 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists.

Brink finished with 11 points, four assists and two blocks in her WNBA debut, but early foul trouble limited her impact. During the second possession of the game, Brink found Clarendon, who hit a three-pointer for the Sparks’ first points. Brink then cut inside to get an easy layup for her first professional points. The hot start propelled the Sparks to an early 9-2 lead.

Brink quickly ran into foul trouble after that, however, and the Dream took advantage of her absence in the paint to tie the game by the end of the first quarter.

“Cam has to find a way to stay out of foul trouble because she’s so important to what we’re doing,” Miller said. “She’s a really good distributor of the ball as a 6-5 person, so she can create opportunities for her teammates. Defensively, she’s great rim protection but when you play three minutes in the first stretch and have to sit down, that’s a big blow. … Really solid start for her, we just got to keep her on the floor longer.”

For all the hype that comes with the Sparks’ two top-four draft picks, Miller said the young and often overlooked team still is working to establish itself.

“Overall, it is a disappointing result because I thought we played well enough in stretches to win this game,” Miller said. “But what a great start, in a lot of ways, on what we’re trying to build as a culture in how we’re playing and sharing [the ball] and moving it. So, something to grow from tonight.”

Whatever work the Sparks have left to do, it won’t get any easier from here as they travel to the desert Saturday to take on the defending champion Las Vegas Aces.