ESPN received some top-notch mockery after a segment in which analysts chose their top five female college basketball players of all time, leaving Caitlin Clark out in the cold.
As in, Caitlin Clark, the highest-scoring college basketball player of all time.
Ari Chambers was the personality most in favor of dropping Clark from the list of great players, saying a lack of a National Championship is a blemish on her resume.
Never mind the back-to-back Final Four appearances and being the all-time NCAA scoring leader for men and women.
“The only strike against Caitlin Clark is that she has not won a national championship, and that is the only thing that you can put against her because the way she dominated the record books at Iowa is something you can’t duplicate,” Chambers stated.
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“She’s a three-time NCAA scoring leader and assists leader… But how can you be a top-five player if you have not won a title?”
Ah, the old “Dan Marino” argument.
espn puts out a 10 min video ranking all time college players. they say caitlin can’t be ranked in the top 5. yet the title is “Is Caitlin Clark The Greatest Of All Time In College Basketball?” to farm engagement and hate lmfaooo pic.twitter.com/X26K6wm6pX
— correlation (@nosyone4) March 16, 2025
Fans Rip ESPN For The Caitlin Calrk Omission
Several fans came to Caitlin Clark’s defense after ESPN dissed her by keeping her off the top 5 list. It should be noted, though, that Chambers’ comments did heap significant praise on the former Iowa Hawkeye.
“There has not been a better college basketball player, on the women’s side of things, than Caitlin Clark,” one fan opined. “All you had to do was just watch one game and you could figure it out.”
“Regardless what ESPN says, CC is the best female basketball player; nobody is even a close 2nd,” another replied.
One fan fretted, “I really hope we don’t spend the next decade watching haters tear down Caitlin Clark.”
She’s only the NCAA Division I all-time leading scorer, the first player to lead NCAA Division I in points and assists in a single season, and led Iowa to back-to-back National Championship games.
No big whoop.
They Kind Of Have A History Of This
This isn’t the first time ESPN has been accused of being slightly biased against Caitlin Clark. Earlier this past season, they tried putting her and Chicago Sky star Angel Reese on the same page when it came to their rookie ratings.
In fact, they had Reese inexplicably at the top of that list. In fact, they produced this list after the Summer Olympics when Clark really separated herself while Reese and her teammates were floundering.
“Do your experts even watch these games? My god!” one person wrote at the time.
With the WNBA playoffs in sight, which rookies are vying for the top spot?
— ESPN (@espn) August 29, 2024
Our experts rank the active qualified rookies on @ESPNPlus ⤵️ https://t.co/RYkTGHxwEW
First Take co-host and NFL Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe ripped his colleagues at the network for not giving Clark her flowers.
“A lot of this noise came by people that were sitting on this network,” Sharpe said. “They tried to minimize her saying, ‘Well you giving her all this credit, what about the women that came before her?’”
“What the women came before her, what they did cannot be taken away. That ain’t got nothing to do with Caitlin Clark.”
“But there is a lot of people that tried to make sure they keep Caitlin Clark in her place because what you’re doing if you give her all this shine, you minimize what they done,” he claimed.
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