Clark’s struggles in Game 1 of the playoffs came one day after being unanimously named the WNBA’s Rookie of the Year

Caitlin Clark. Photo: M. Anthony Nesmith/Icon Sportswire via Getty

Caitlin Clark had a rookie season that will be remembered for ages, but her WNBA playoff debut on Sunday is a game she’d probably like to forget.

The Indiana Fever star, 22, suffered a black eye after she was poked in the eye by the Connecticut Sun’s Dijonai Carrington during a three-point attempt early in the game’s first quarter. Clark then went on to miss 10 of her first 11 shots, finishing the game shooting 2-for-13 from three-point range.

“[Carrington] got me pretty good in the eye; I don’t think it affected me,” Clark said, according to the Associated Press, refusing to blame her relatively lackluster performance on the first quarter incident. “I felt like I got good shots, they just didn’t go down. Tough time for that to happen. I thought I got some really good looks. Three pretty wide open 3s in the first half, you usually make.”

Clark, who was unanimously named the WNBA’s Rookie of the Year on Saturday, scored just 11 points. That’s well below the average 19.2 points per game she put up throughout the regular season, as the Connecticut Sun blew out Indiana 93-69 to take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three playoff series.

Caitlin Clark. M. Anthony Nesmith/Icon Sportswire via Getty

The star rookie only made 23.5% of her shots, compared to the regular season when she made 41.7% of her shots per game.

It was a “frustrating” postseason debut, Clark told reporters after the game.

“My shot felt like it was right there,” Clark said, according to the AP. “It’s so frustrating as a shooter when it won’t go down for you.”

Recently, a slow-motion clip of the Carrington eye poke incident on X (formerly Twitter) was shared, and fans of the Fever and Caitlin Clark reacted strongly, expressing their anger and frustration toward Dijonai Carrington. One person said, “Definitely intentional. She should be removed.”

Another commented, “It’s intentional. How much validation does one need.”

Another person lent full support to Caitlin Clark and didn’t hold back their feelings at all, criticizing Dijonai Carrington, saying, “Look at her hand. She is bending her fingers down to jab her in the eyes. She knew exactly what she was doing. The WNBA needs to stop this. Carrington should not be allowed to play in the next few games and fined along with apologizing to Clark.”

One person commented, “That’s not a foul that’s assault. She literally tried blinding the star player of the entire WNBA.”

Her past controversies have made the situation even more intense. So far, she has not publicly commented on the incident, leaving fans to wonder about her intentions.

Indiana kept things close during the first half, but Connecticut jumped out to an 11-point lead by the end of the third quarter and ran away with the game in the fourth.

“We were right there, I felt like we just played a crappy game,” Clark bemoaned afterwards, according to USA Today. “The flow was really bad, I don’t know if that was the reffing, it was probably partly us because we struggled to get stops at times, but also the clock getting messed up, it was just one thing after the next.”

Caitlin Clark. M. Anthony Nesmith/Icon Sportswire via Getty

Fans online played living room investigators after the game and questioned whether Dijonai Carrington deliberately poked Clark in the eye, slowing down video on social media and trying to decipher the bang-bang first quarter play.

Others also drew comparisons to a physical play late in the third quarter when Clark appeared to get a bit of payback, throwing out her left arm and elbowing Carrington in the face while she was guarding Clark. The elbow knocked Carrington’s contact out of her eye and drew a second look from the ESPN broadcast team, as play stopped to allow Carrington to find the lens on the floor.

The two WNBA stars will face off again Wednesday night when Indiana and Connecticut play Game Two of their three-game opening round playoff series.