Caitlin Clark fever is spreading. Indiana is all-in on the excitement

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Michelle Lennis grew up playing basketball in Indiana as a born-and-raised Purdue fan.

But this season, Lennis also found herself cheering for the Iowa women’s basketball team led by Caitlin Clark as the college player rocketed her sport to new levels.

When the Indiana Fever made Clark its No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft Monday, it immediately turned up the heat in a city and state that already live and breathe basketball. Lennis, 43, was all-in on the excitement.

“She put it on the map like nobody else has,” Lennis said Tuesday, tearing up as she described her own case of Caitlin Clark fever. “People don’t take it seriously. They just don’t take women seriously.”

Before shopping Tuesday at the team store, Lennis and her 7-year-old son attended a WNBA draft party Monday night at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, the home of the Fever. She was thrilled to see both young boys and girls hyped for Clark’s upcoming WNBA debut.

“As a former player, seeing all the the hate and the comments and comparisons — and Caitlin just finally shut them all up,” Lennis said.

Nearly 17,000 tickets were claimed for the free draft party on Monday at Gainbridge in Indianapolis, home also to the NBA’s Indiana Pacers. Fans watched a live video feed from the WNBA draft event in New York and erupted into cheers while balloons fell following the pick.

Fever players including Erica Wheeler, Maya Caldwell and Lexie Hull leapt to their feet and then pulled on red Fever jerseys with the No. 22 and Clark’s name in white.

Coach Christie Sides later joined the players on the court, asking the crowd to reenact their reaction to the pick since she hadn’t been in the room to experience it. She wore a red T-shirt that was among the Clark-branded items quickly offered on the team’s fan store: “With the 1st pick in the 2024 WNBA draft, the Indiana Fever select Caitlin Clark.”

Stephanie Bevins, who works with Lennis at a restaurant near Gainbridge, expects a surge of customers to the business during the the highly anticipated Fever season. The two bought Clark and Fever merchandise at the team store Tuesday afternoon over their lunch break for fear they would sell out later.