Caitlin Clark’s viral point on national TV: ESPN’s Ryan Ruocco on the moment — and the Fever’s title hopes
Announcer Ryan Ruocco, who’ll be on the call for Fever-Sky, reflects on Caitlin Clark’s viral logo shot, Stephanie White’s return to Indiana, and why this retooled Fever team is built to contend.
The clock was winding down, and Caitlin Clark was about to be subbed out for the final time in her showcase return to the University of Iowa. It was just a preseason game — and nearly a 60-point blowout — so new head coach Stephanie White wanted to get the starters out.
But first, Clark had something else in mind: a deep shot from the logo. Her logo.
“You knew that was coming!” she later told White.
Clark did one better — and swished it from beyond the logo, officially 36 feet out.
She turned, celebrated, and pointed toward ESPN play-by-play announcer Ryan Ruocco, seated courtside. Ruocco, Rebecca Lobo and Holly Rowe make up the network’s top broadcast team for women’s basketball. They'll be on the call again Saturday at 3 p.m. ET when the Fever host the Sky on ABC.
“No story,” she said after the game. “Just my guy, Ryan Ruocco. He's the man. I like him. I'm sure he had a good ‘You bet!’ call.”
Ruocco, who was recently a guest on my Fieldhouse Files podcast, recalled that spontaneous, unscripted moment.
Caitlin and I have a great relationship and I think we built that covering her in college. I think Caitlin knows that Rebecca and Holly and I have really taken great care to try and tell her story accurately and build her up to our audience as the great star that she is. And she knows how passionate we are about what we do and how serious we are about it.
… I think she trusts us and, as a result, has reverence for our crew and me and her have developed a great relationship. She knows I'm a basketball junkie and she's a basketball junkie. There's many times during a women's college game I'm doing that I'll get a message from Caitlin that she's watching and she's noticing something about some player and she’s projecting how one player is going to do in the WNBA versus another. She just loves talking the game and so do I. And so we've really bonded over that.
That chemistry was on display with her point and smile after the deep three.
It was funny because as she hit that three, sometimes you develop relationships with different players over the course of covering them and they'll interact with you at the table during the game in different ways. It was something I always loved about doing games in the NBA as well because it would happen all the time. … And so as she hit that three, she gave a smile afterwards to us at the table. So then there was a little point back and forth just to acknowledge how ridiculous that shot was and her once again, living up to the hype of that moment.