2-14-24 BENS BEEF WITH CAITLIN CLARK PT 2

Continued……..

[@194fa]

She leads the country in points and assists. So........

[@darchon5]

Ben, if you're going to go on a long-winded rant about Clark, then it'd be nice to have more of your facts in order, don't you think? - The most egregious claim was you saying that Clark is too selfish and is "a horrible example of how you play team basketball". Yet she's led the nation in assists for the past 3 seasons and was 3rd her freshman year, and she's going to end up top 5 all-time in assists and will likely pass Ionescu for 4th. She's also won the Dawn Staley Award for the nation's best point guard every single year and should win it for the 4th time in a row this year - you think those are doled out to selfish players who are horrible at team basketball? So there goes that narrative. - You say Bueckers over Clark in terms of good team basketball role modeling, yet Clark's 8.1 career asts/gm including 8.5 this yr dwarfs Bueckers' 4.7 career and 4.0 this yr. - You say Clark's selfish because of her logo 3s, but you talked as if Clark pulls up a lot from just a couple of steps past half court, as on her record breaking shot. But she rarely shoots from that far out. That was one of her deepest ever shots, around 35'. Her analytics say that she shoots half of her 3s from 25-30' and makes those at virtually the same clip as the rest of her 3s. Often her difference in 3-pt shot selection depends on how open she is from 25-30' vs at the line. Usually players obviously aren't as tightly guarded from 25-30', so in fact for her those can be good shots. No, kids shouldn't necessarily emulate her lengthy 3s, but there are many other aspects of her game that should be patterned after, especially her passing. - When Clark shoots those 25-30' 3s, at least a couple of teammates know to crash the boards, not 'no one'; this is old hat for their team. - The men's and women's 3-pt lines aren't different in college; they've been the same for 3 yrs, which is also the same as the WNBA line, at 22' 1.75". The NBA line is at 23' 9". - And what's with the semantics on 'logo 3s'? So even though Clark's record breaker was from the same distance as both of Iowa's logos, but she just so happened to be in-between both logos, the shot cannot be called a 'logo 3'? You really gonna nitpick that much? - Maddy Siegrist was a great scorer, but she's actually 21st all-time in scoring, not 3rd.

[@darchon5]

So I watched the 2/20 follow-up video by Ben - why did you guys turn off comments for that video? (EDIT: 1 day later, I see that comments have now been enabled again, good decision. I'll post this over there also). Disappointing, so I guess I'll respond to it here. Ben unfortunately just rehashed and doubled-down on one particular point while pretending he didn't also previous spew a bunch of falsehoods, which he added onto here. He responded to a couple of comments, but sadly nothing of mine; hope you read these at least. I'll try not to repeat myself too much, unlike Ben. Ben didn't address at all the worst part of what you said about Clark, so here's those 2 blanket statements you made: "Caitlin Clark needs to share the ball, too selfish" and "she is a horrible example of how you play team basketball" - and also had to add that Bueckers is a better basekball role model. Don't try to now pretend that you only specified that it was about one shot only, because you've been implying that Clark shoots those types of shots on the regular, which would be absolutely false; it's actually rare that she shoots from that far. So why people bring up assists and other aspects of her game is that she's a great role model for everything but the 35 ft 3s, and in fact she's a better facilitator than Bueckers. Ben still harps on what a bad time in the game it was to take the shot, but actually if you're going to hoist that, 2 min into the game is better than any other time - far away from crunch time, and gives the D something more to be aware of right off the bat, and it was against a big underdog who Iowa did end up blowing out. Ben admits that such shots stretch defenses yet wanted to focus on the shot only. saying "I'm not talking about any of that" regarding its effect on the D, but too bad, basketball doesn't take place in a vacuum. The reality is that the threat of such shots does stretch out the D to halfcourt, leaving a teammate or two open; that's a tangible benefit of her very occasional shot from that distance, which is NOT "a half-court shot" or "one dribble across half court" as you tried to say. Ben also talks out of both sides of his mouth, saying about Clark that he loves "what she's doing" including those long 3s, yet it's a "terrible shot" and she's a bad role model, and emulate Bueckers instead. Just stop it and say what you actually mean, that you think Bueckers is better and Clark is selfish, more than just with that one shot. Now to address more of Ben's falsehoods: - "No one admits it's a terrible shot": since Clark shoots those at a respectable % that's not far off from her overall 3-pt %, then the numbers say that it's not a "terrible shot", period. You think the entire Iowa coaching staff have just been dummies about this for 4 yrs? The only reason Clark gets the green light is because of the accuracy! - On the record breaker, there were 2 teammates in position for a rebound by the time the ball got to the rim, yet Ben talked as if there weren't any Iowa players nearby. - The shot is "disrespectful" to both teams: obviously you don't watch nor know a damn thing about these Iowa teams. They're good with it due to the accuracy, and they also love when Clark decides to blow past her defender instead and create plays for them. And who cares if the other team thinks it's "disrespectful"? It's not on the level of any trash talk, which I don't hear people whining about being disrespectful to the point wherer it should stop completely. - Ben's laughable downplaying of Clark having 1000+ career assists was to make the analogy that the NBA all-star game was terrible basketball with a lot of assists. Not even in the same stratosphere, what does that even mean?? Again, Ben is ignorant about Clark's overall game if he doesn't want to believe that Clark is one of the best ever facilitators. - Erroneously claiming that Clark's Mich St buzzer beater game winner came after the buzzer. It did not, which can be clearly seen on replay; the broadcast video unfortunately wasn't synced correctly with the horn for whatever reason. Also, you realize that the officials reviewed the replay - you really think that all of them would be so wrong about such a big, and easy-to-determine decision? If yes, that's honestly starting to get into conspiracy territory about how Iowa's favored. They're not.

[@survivrs]

Caitlin doesn't need a line, she can shoot it from almost anywhere in the front court, and she can cut quicker than anyone. Ask ANYONE who has tried to defend her. It's nearly become impossible. Her only weak spot might be her rebounds, but her numbers are still high.

[@darchon5]

She's one of the better rebounding point guards. Her weakness is defense at times; sometimes the effort isn't there, or the feet aren't shuffling quick enough to stay in front and/or rotate when needed. I say 'at times', because other times she can be quite good on D, and also her steal/block numbers are decent for a point guard.

[@survivrs]

@@darchon5 Last week at Nebraska, she faded fast. Granted I'm sure she wanted that record at home, but she looked incredibly pale before the game even started, and it was a couple of days later we learned that she was running a 102 fever, so by the 4th quarter she wasn't even running the court. She shot the lights out Thursday against Michigan and she looked very healthy as well.

[@darchon5]

@@survivrs Absolutely. Got into it w a hater who said that illness was no excuse at all for the Nebraska loss and claimed they still would've lost if the entire team had been healthy. I said that while they very well could've/should've found a way to win regardless, they very likely would've won if healthy since Clark never goes 0-6 w 0 pts in 4th qtrs, plus they only lost by 1 possession to a team they blew out by 19 just 2 wks before that, plus Davis was out and at least a couple others were sick too.

[@survivrs]

@@darchon5 Molly Davis had only played 4 minutes in the game before Nebraska because she was ill, and her minutes were limited in the Nebraska game as well. In the first quarter it was easy to see that there were at least 2 others who weren't healthy, so while we didn't want the loss, I was just amazed that they did as well as they did. If I have a fever like that, I can't get out of bed. I hope as we are coming down to the final games of the regular season, then to the B1G tournament and NCAA tournament that everyone can stay healthy and free from injury.

[@darchon5]

@@survivrs Cheers to that. And thanks for the correction, didn't realize Davis snuck in for 2 min vs Nebraska.

[@destinypirate]

Wow, try stepping on a court. No one stands under the hoop to rebound missed 3s. Those orange balls are filled with pressurized air and bounce - good rebounders will go away from the rim, opposite a 3 shot (great rebounders will read the trajectory.) Her - yes it's logo if logo distance 3s - made at 35% equal 52% for 2s bought after a bunch of passes. If she's open her shot is better than risking a steal, as her 3 percentage is nearly 40%. Of course, with her vision the 3 strategically spreads the D allowing her to be the best point guard in the nation - crushing assists like no other. That's why we are in the era of guards (and stretch bigs) now. 40% 3s spread Ds, and a team that can cut will win and win. This is why Iowa's coach is genius, she didn't try to play 1985 inside out when she was given the greatest outside player of all time. There's a reason that Curry is the GOAT small, and Kerr was smart enough to break all of these ''fundamental'' rules, just for Curry - because he could win it all with small ball like no one in history, as can Caitlyn.

[@usveteran9893]

Rob Dibble, you are just saying stuff to hear your own voice.

[@jimstock7459]

Men and Women have a different 3 pt line? DUH