Sports
Logo 3s, precise passing, superstardom: Caitlin Clark is The Athletic's women's basketball Player of the Year
Our honor of naming Caitlin Clark The Athletic’s Player of the Year is a surprise to absolutely no one.
A media outlet or organization that doesn’t crown her as the national player of the year would be committing the basketball version of heresy. Small children to grandparents and the generations in between know about Clark’s record-setting season and her penchant for shots that sometimes seem like they’re launched from the moon.
The mythology of Caitlin Clark is growing — and will become even more legendary if she carries Iowa to the national championship game once again. Her wow-factor shooting has lured in casual viewers to become not only Iowa diehards but women’s college basketball fans. Clark has been impossible to ignore, but somehow the bigger her stardom, seemingly the more under-appreciated the nuances in her game become that go beyond the razzle-dazzle.
Clark leads the nation with 32.7 points per game (a category she’s led three of her four seasons), while also ranking first with 8.7 assists per game (a category she’s led nationally the last three seasons). She’s making the most 3-pointers per game with 5.4 (a category she also led last season), but her 7 defensive rebounds per game rank her in the 95th percentile of players. Her win shares and player efficiency rating, per HerHoopsStats, top the charts.
Why Clark is the best player in the nation is unquestionably based on her phenomenal skill we’ve rarely seen in the sport. She does so much so well, she floods fans’ memories with highlights.
But as we voted for our Player of the Year — admittedly, an easy vote void of debate this season — we tasked our women’s college basketball experts with a harder question. What stood out most about Clark’s memorable season?
The precision passing
As much fun as I’ve had watching Clark launch 3s from the logo, I’ve gotta go with an assist for this. I’ve had a chance to see her in person three times this season and I walk away every time saying, “Television might give folks an idea of Clark as a shooter, but it doesn’t even scratch the surface in terms of how good she is as a passer.” To truly understand her vision and her ability to find these needle-threading windows, you need to be able to see the full court, not sections selected by a cameraperson. Seeing Clark make 60-foot passes in transition look easy or watching her send an absolute rocket through four defenders is never going to get old. This specific one is the assist that made Clark the Big Ten leader in assists, so it feels appropriate to have a pass that shows her vision, precision and execution all on full display included here. Plus, nice finish, Hannah Stuelke. I’ll miss that connection next year. Check the pass at the 51-second mark here:
— Chantel Jennings
The dazzling star
Even after watching Clark lead the Hawkeyes to the national title game, I don’t think I understood the magnitude of what she would mean to college basketball until the start of this season, when Iowa faced Virginia Tech in Charlotte. Witnessing more than 15,000 fans at a neutral site live and die with every moment of a nonconference game was all the proof necessary that Clark was going to be a phenomenon wherever she went this year. And of course, on national television, she delivered a masterpiece, posting 44 points, eight rebounds, and six assists. The list of power conference players who have scored 44 points in a game this year? JuJu Watkins, Hannah Stuelke and Caitlin Clark, who has done it three times … and counting. By the way, those other two combined for three assists in their games.
On a night when Virginia Tech superstar Georgia Amoore scored 31 points of her own, Hokies coach Kenny Brooks was realistic about what it meant to go up against Clark. “I love my girls,” he said, “but sometimes you’re playing checkers and she’s playing chess. She’s that good.” She has been dazzling crowds – and opposing coaches – ever since.
— Sabreena Merchant
The logo 3s
Clark said it herself: How else was she going to cement her place in history and set the NCAA women’s all-time scoring record than with a logo 3? Her triple, on Iowa’s fifth possession against Michigan on Feb. 15, gave Clark the all-time record and set off raucous ovations inside a sellout Carver-Hawkeye Arena. It was the most fitting way for her to make history, and it was made all the more impressive by the fact it took her only 2:22 for her to score 8 points and pass former Washington star Kelsey Plum. That night, Clark would go on to record a career-high and program record 49 points in the Hawkeyes’ 106-89 win, putting on a masterful showcase that punctuated the evening’s occasion. “What she’s done to uplift our program and women’s basketball nationally is spectacular,” Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said afterward. Clark’s passing is undeniably exquisite — in terms of flair and accuracy — but Clark will first, and foremost, go down as among the very best scorers (and shooters) in the history of college basketball, men’s or women’s. Perhaps the very best. I could have picked any number of moments then in which she put the ball in the basket — her game-winning 3-pointer against Michigan State, her 3-pointer against Minnesota to pass Lynette Woodard, her free throws to leapfrog Pete Maravich, etc. — but perhaps no sequence epitomizes her greatness and drive like the manner in which she passed Plum.
You’re kidding 😂@caitlinclark22 x #Hawkeyes pic.twitter.com/afOSOY70Ku
— Iowa Women’s Basketball (@IowaWBB) February 16, 2024
— Ben Pickman
POY voting tally
| Player | Team | Points |
|---|---|---|
|
Caitlin Clark |
30 |
|
|
Cameron Brink |
27 |
|
|
JuJu Watkins |
21 |
(Photo of Caitlin Clark: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)
Sports
Oba Femi vs Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam is a ‘generational matchup,’ WWE legend JBL says
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Oba Femi and Brock Lesnar’s feud will come to a head at SummerSlam in August, and the showdown has the potential to be WWE’s match of the year.
Femi beat Lesnar at WrestleMania 42 and led to “The Beast Incarnate” deciding to retire – at least for a moment – at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. Lesnar made a dramatic return a few weeks later, challenging and beating Femi at Clash in Italy.
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Oba Femi looks on during Monday Night RAW at Allstate Arena on July 6, 2026, in Chicago, Illinois. (Melina Pizano/WWE via Getty Images)
At SummerSlam, Femi and Lesnar will do battle inside a Hell in a Cell.
WWE Hall of Famer John Bradshaw Layfield called the next meeting between Femi and Lesnar a “generational matchup.”
“I’ve never seen anything like Oba – well, I have. I’ve seen Brock,” he told Fox News Digital. “It’s very much the carbon copy of Brock coming in. Brock coming in was like, oh my God, who is this guy? The guy can even talk, and he’s gonna be one of the biggest stars in wrestling. Not only could he talk, he’s a really smart guy. Brock became one of the biggest draws in professional wrestling. He came one of the biggest draws in UFC. It’s an unbelievable story, and now you got somebody who can rival that character.
Brock Lesnar in action against Oba Femi during “Monday Night Raw” at TD Garden on March 23, 2026, in Boston, Massachusetts. (Michael Owens/WWE via Getty Images)
“This Oba Femi comes out with the silly little walk he does. Everyone kinda does it, it’s like The Bushwackers. But the whole arena does it. I was in Vegas and I didn’t want to go to the matches and deal with the traffic and deal with the backstage area, and so I kinda just watched it in a sports bar. I stood in the back where nobody could recognize me, and as soon as Oba came out, the entire sports bar was sitting there doing that Oba Femi dance. The guy is just unbelievably over.
“I really think that somewhere in the NFL this year, you’re going to see an entire NFL arena doing this dance. You’re gonna have somebody like Saquon Barkley or ‘King’ (Derrick Henry) or some of these guys do this dance, and it’s infectious. Once one of them does, one of these great running backs or wide receivers, or somebody scores a touchdown, that’s when I think you’re gonna see entire arenas doing it. I just think Oba Femi is lightning in a bottle and Brock has always been that way. This is, to me, a generational matchup.”
Brock Lesnar and Oba Femi face off during WrestleMania 42: Night 2 at Allegiant Stadium on April 19, 2026, in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Georgiana Dallas/WWE via Getty Images)
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SummerSlam will take place on Aug. 1 and 2 at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.
Sports
Commentary: ‘I don’t want any handouts.’ Amid the Angels’ drought, a starry homecoming for Mike Trout
Mike Trout last played in an All-Star Game seven years ago. It’s crazy, really. The best player of the previous decade, the link that ties Barry Bonds and Albert Pujols to Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani, has not taken an All-Star at-bat this decade.
Injuries, mostly. And he turns 35 next month.
Next week’s All-Star Game takes place in Philadelphia, about 40 miles north of Trout’s hometown of Millville, N.J. Major League Baseball reserves a potential All-Star roster spot or two each summer for distinguished players: Bryce Harper and Justin Verlander this year, Clayton Kershaw last year, Pujols and Miguel Cabrera in past years.
That could have been Trout’s spot this summer: a worthy honor for a three-time most valuable player, a local hero feted on the national stage the Angels have failed to provide him.
“I wouldn’t have done it,” Trout said.
Not even at home?
“It’s an honor to get voted in and represent the American League,” he said. “For me, I don’t want any handouts.”
Trout is an All-Star for the 12th time, the old-fashioned way: He earned it.
Fans voted him into the starting lineup, with the most final-round votes of any AL outfielder. His peers voted him as one of the top three outfielders in the AL.
“It means a lot,” he said. “I’ve been through a lot of hurdles, a lot of adversity. I put some hard work in, and I did not let up. I could have easily got down on myself and not pushed through it and not come back.
“I know what I am capable of. I know I have the confidence to get back to the player I used to be.”
His .874 OPS entering play Thursday ranks second among AL outfielders, a career season for many players. In 11 of his 14 full seasons — all but the previous three — he has posted a higher OPS.
In April, in a four-game series against the New York Yankees, Trout hit five home runs and drove in nine runs.
“Everything was clicking,” he said. “When I first came up, that’s how I felt the whole season.
“Just to be able to get that feeling back, that little spark, to know it’s still in there, it makes you feel pretty good.”
For him, so does playing in Philadelphia. The first time he played there with the Angels, Millville basically closed down for the night, and just about everyone in town boarded a bus to the game. Then Trout had an exceptionally rare experience, a visiting player cheered at the home of the boo.
Mark Gubicza can testify to that. Gubicza, the two-time All-Star pitcher and now the Angels’ television analyst, grew up in Philadelphia.
“I don’t care if you were God himself, if you were wearing a different color uniform, I was still booing you,” Gubicza said. “But he was cheered.”
Still is. Trout is a diehard Philadelphia Eagles fan, with his season tickets not in some climate-controlled luxury suite but along the sideline.
“The players all walk by him and say ‘Trouty!’ ” Gubicza said. “Before they all go out to get their heads beat in, they’re all saying hi.
“He’s not one of those guys that comes there to be seen. He’s going there to root. That’s why they love him: He’s one of us.”
Said Trout: “I know how passionate I am about the Eagles. From my experience as an Eagles fan, it’s just different.
“It’s like win or die.”
It’s not like that in Southern California, where almost no one listens to sports-talk radio, and where a nice day is always a day away.
No one would begrudge Trout for living year-round along the Orange County coast. (OK, maybe Philadelphia fans would.)
Roy Hallenbeck, Trout’s high school coach, remembered visiting years ago on what he called “a perfect day” and asking Trout how he could ever get tired of all that sunshine.
“Yeah, coach, I couldn’t live here,” Trout told him. “‘I need my seasons.”
Trout built a family home near his boyhood home. He built his Trout National golf resort, with a course designed by Tiger Woods, in Millville.
He is as loyal to the Angels as he is to Millville. He appreciates the team that “took a chance on a kid from a little town in southern New Jersey” and signed him to two nine-figure contract extensions.
Trout was the last Angels player to take a postseason at-bat, in 2014. Even amid baseball’s longest playoff drought, he still considers Anaheim a special place, and always will.
“It’s where it all began,” Trout said. “I think the fuel of people doubting us kind of makes it more of a fire for me to try to get back to the playoffs. I think that’s the biggest key for me.
“Could I take the easy way out and just leave? Yeah. But I think — I said this last year around this time, but it’s the same feeling I’ve been having — I really haven’t sat down and talked to anybody about it specifically, but I know there’s a time where, if things change, who knows? I don’t know. But, for me, right now, my focus is on trying to get this club back in the playoffs.”
At the All-Star Game, Trout might well hear Phillies fans beseech him to come play for the home team. However, Hallenbeck said, the hometown folks no longer are as strident in that long-held wish.
“I think the overriding sentiment of most people I talk with, even Phillies fans, is we would all — as people that know him, love him and care for him — love to watch him play relevant baseball in August and September,” Hallenbeck said. “It doesn’t matter where. It doesn’t matter who. Just being relevant late in the season would be something we would all love to see.
“Hopefully, it’s with the Angels. They’ve been so good to him. We’d love to see it there.”
So would we. In the meantime, in the absence of a World Series, Trout deserves to enjoy his homecoming game.
Sports
London descends into disorder as Morocco fans flood streets after World Cup elimination by France
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Public unrest began in parts of London late Thursday night, and it appears Morocco’s exit from the 2026 FIFA World Cup at the hands of France is the reason.
France took down Morocco 2-0, eliminating the African country for the second consecutive tournament, this time in a quarterfinal match.
As a result, many feared Paris would erupt into riots, especially after the chaos that followed Paris Saint-Germain’s UEFA Champions League victory over Arsenal in May.
Instead, images and videos from Edgware Road in northwest London showed police clashing with large crowds as smoke billowed through the streets and debris littered the roadway.
A police vehicle is parked in a road as people from pro-Palestinian activist groups gather near the Edgware United Synagogue during a demonstration against the “Great Israeli Real Estate Event” organized by real-estate agency My Home in Israel, which markets property in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, in London, Britain, June 14, 2026. (Toby Shepheard)
Riot police, equipped with shields and body armor, tried to contain the crowds as they clashed with people launching fireworks and throwing debris. One video also appeared to show an officer down.
KYLIAN MBAPPÉ, OUSMANE DEMBÉLÉ FIRE FRANCE INTO WORLD CUP SEMIFINALS WITH WIN OVER MOROCCO
It’s unknown what happened to the officer who was down on the asphalt or how he was injured.
Fans waved Moroccan flags in the middle of the streets, which held up traffic. Some even jumped on top of vehicles trying to get through the area.
Moroccan fans in the stands before a FIFA World Cup 2026 quarterfinal match between France and Morocco at Boston Stadium July 9, 2026, in Foxborough, Mass. (Richard Sellers/SportsphotoAllstar)
Similar scenes unfolded after Egypt’s World Cup exit, when Argentina rallied for a controversial 3-2 victory that featured several disputed officiating decisions.
Paris, on the other hand, looked more like a city celebrating than one on the brink of a riot. Supporters of both France and Morocco flooded the streets, slowing traffic in several parts of the city.
One video showed horns blasting from cars with French and Moroccan flags out the windows on the L’avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris. Supporters on the side of the road, waving their own flags, joined in on the celebration.
France’s Kylian Mbappé scored his eighth goal of this World Cup, which ties him for the most with Argentina’s Lionel Messi. Ousmane Dembélé also scored in the second half for France in the 2-0 win over Morocco.
It’s the third straight semifinal appearance for France, while Morocco still made World Cup history despite the loss. After becoming the first African country to reach the quarterfinals and semifinals in World Cup history in 2022, Morocco added to that by becoming the first-ever African nation to reach more than one quarterfinal.
Moroccan fans react while attending a watch party for the World Cup round of 8 match between France and Morocco in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 9, 2026. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP)
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Morocco’s exit means there are no more African nations alive in the World Cup. France will be taking on the winner of Spain and Belgium, while England and Norway and Argentina and Switzerland face off in the quarterfinals.
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