Joy Taylor Sparks Controversy With Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese Claim originally appeared on The Spun.
Fox Sports 1 host Joy Taylor is sparking controversy with her comment on Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese.
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Clark and Reese have been rivals since the 2022-23 college basketball season. Reese and her LSU Tigers topped Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes in the 2023 women’s national championship game. Clark and the Hawkeyes got payback in 2024, topping Reese and LSU in the Elite Eight. Since then, the two have been connected.
While Clark is a significantly better WNBA player, she and Reese are constantly mentioned together. Taylor, who hosts “Speak” on Fox Sports 1, believes that the sports world as a whole wouldn’t be talking about Clark the way we do if it wasn’t for Reese.
Joy Taylor speaks out.Joy Taylor/X
Taylor believes that there is a group of people – mostly white – that wouldn’t be talking about Clark if not for that 2023 national title moment with Reese.
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“The Magic Johnson, Larry Bird moment for the WNBA. This is great,” she said on Joe Budden’s podcast.
“You need villains, you need heroes. You need (expletive) to sell. You need to sell a fight. Brand, all of this.
“It upset white men to watch this strong, winning, unapologetic Black woman be in Caitlin’s face. They still cling to it. It’s now like spun to this whole, ‘Caitlin’s better than Angel.’
“We would not be talking about Caitlin the way we do if not for that moment with Angel Reese. I will die on this hill. I will die on this hill.”
Taylor is talking about Reese taunting Clark in the final moments of the 2023 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament national championship game.
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“ANGEL REESE HIT CAITLIN CLARK WITH THE “YOU CAN’T SEE ME” 👀,” ESPN wrote back in 2023.
Taylor is right in the sense that the moment certainly created a ton of discussion, at least for that season.
But at this point, Clark has flown past Reese in terms of who they are as WNBA players. They’re still connected because of their past games, but we’ll have to see how long that lasts.
Magic Johnson and Larry Bird were both all-time great NBA players. It remains to be seen if Angel Reese will be that kind of player in the WNBA.
Joy Taylor Sparks Controversy With Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese Claim first appeared on The Spun on Jun 23, 2025
This story was originally reported by The Spun on Jun 23, 2025, where it first appeared.
