The rivalry between Paige Bueckers and Caitlin Clark has dominated the conversation around women’s college basketball for some time now. But as we approach the 2025 WNBA Draft, former NFL star George Wrighster has thrown some serious weight into the debate. With a five-point analysis, Wrighster takes the conversation to new depths, arguing why Caitlin Clark’s meteoric rise to fame is about far more than just her basketball prowess. And it has everything every other person keeps saying separately!

It’s hard to ignore how Caitlin Clark became a household name in women’s sports. Wrighster did not sugarcoat it, nor did he pick a side. His first point? “Caitlin Clark plays fun basketball. She gives Steph Curry vibes. She got logo threes, no-look passes.” True enough. Clark’s style is a spectacle. Think back to her 41-point explosion against LSU in the 2024 Elite Eight, sinking nine threes, that had fans losing their minds. Even the casual ones! “She didn’t just score, she performed,” Wrighster further said in the video, emphasizing that Clark wasn’t just a player to watch rather, she was an experience.

But it’s not just about style. Wrighster’s second point hinted at deeper aspects: “She had anti-villains, she had foils. You had Angel Reese in LSU, that big energy and even bigger confidence.” This is something that almost every analyst has echoed. If Caitlin Clark didn’t have Angel Reese in the narrative, the story would not have been that pulling. These clashes gave Clark’s journey drama. While Bueckers has faced tough opponents, too, her narrative lacked that same foil. When UConn beat South Carolina for the title this year, it was dominant, not dramatic. So, Paige is unreal, but it’s not a soap opera like Caitlin’s games.

Now, Wrighster’s third point should hook you with nostalgia: “The underdog versus the hero and the villain stories. They are always great.” As he put it, Clark was Iowa’s David against college basketball’s Goliaths. Iowa hadn’t reached a Final Four since 1993 before Clark led them there in 2023 and 2024. Bueckers, playing for UConn—a program with 11 (now 12) national titles—never had that scrappy narrative. Her team was almost always expected to win.

Then came the fourth point, which was grounded in stats and sort of tied with his first point: “Iconic moments. The woman had 40-point games, trash talk, big stage, butter, buzzer-beaters”. It’s true. For Iowa fans, Clark has created those highlight reels that they might tell their children as bedtime stories. And why these moments are more iconic than Bueckers’ clutch moments, you ask? Well, you can refer to the first three points for that. Also, also, totally forgot to mention. Do you remember Clark chirping at Hailey Van Lith? Yeah, this one only- You’re down 15 points. Shut up! The clip from then spread like wildfire. So, you now know what he meant when he said trash talk. For Bueckers? She says it has been a while since she last trash-talked, probably wayyyy back in High School.

Finally, Wrighster did not shy away from the tough stuff either: “Yes, race and cultural identity did play a role. Her image did help her connect with certain parts of America”. Her “humble swagger,” as Wrighster called it, hit different for mainstream audiences. But why didn’t Bueckers, also white, ride the same wave? One possible reason for that was best explained by the Guardian. Etan Thomas observed, “While Black America cheered Bueckers, mainstream white America—a demographic that once saw her as a ‘media darling’—wasn’t as loud about her anymore”. That is possible, considering how vocal Bueckers has been about Black rights.

While the NFL star has put forward everything, the narrative around rivalries keeps evolving in the world of sports. So, stay tuned for that as well. As of now, the only constants that we can compare are their numbers. So, let us take you there.

The Numbers Don’t Lie, But They Don’t Say Everything Either

Let’s talk numbers—they’re cold, hard facts, but remember they’re only part of the Clark-Bueckers story.

Caitlin Clark’s 3,951 NCAA points made her the all-time scoring leader, a record set with a 49-point dominance against Michigan in 2024. Her WNBA rookie season? A dazzling 17.1 points, 8.2 assists, and 5.8 rebounds per game, earning All-WNBA First Team honors and pushing the Fever to the playoffs for the first time since 2016. Paige Bueckers hasn’t been far behind and she will surely carry her recent brilliance into the league.

Her 2025 UConn season saw 19.9 points on a 53.4% field goal clip, 5.2 assists, and a 50/40/90 shooting split. The cherry on top? The national title, of course. To send the Huskies into the elite eight, she scored a career high of 40 points against Oklahoma. So, on paper, both are titans—Clark’s volume and Bueckers’ efficiency are neck-and-neck.

The viewership tells another story, though. If we compare last year’s final four and this year’s, then there was a staggering drop of almost 10 million. And what did Clark fans have to say, you ask? Of course, they got an opportunity to go on about how the Caitlin Clark effect is so real. That’s true, we agree. But let’s not ignore the glaring reasons.

If you look closely enough, some of the reasons cited by George also double down as why Paige’s game couldn’t draw that much audience. Absence of rivalry, absence of drama. Absence of an underdog narrative, absence of drama. With so little drama and so much predictability, fans probably thought that it was better to put on Cartoon Network for the laughs.