{"id":518398,"date":"2026-03-12T04:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T04:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/518398\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T04:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T04:25:09","slug":"everything-caitlin-clark-said-after-double-double-in-team-usa-debut-return-from-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/518398\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything Caitlin Clark Said After Double-Double in Team USA Debut, Return from Injury"},"content":{"rendered":"

Caitlin Clark returned to action for the first time since July on Wednesday, leading Team USA to a dominant win over Senegal in FIBA World Cup qualifiers in San Juan, Puerto Rico. <\/p>\n

The Indiana Fever star, who posted 17 points and 12 assists in 19 minutes, was expecting nerves in her first game back, but remembered how much fun she has playing the game. <\/p>\n

“I thought I was going to be anxious, but I was just excited,” Clark said, per ESPN’s Kendra Andrews<\/a>. “I’ve been preparing for this for a really long time. … There’s nothing like getting to run around out there and having fun, especially with a group of people as talented as this. It came to me pretty quick, especially when I got that first 3 to roll around.”<\/p>\n

Clark played just 13 games during the 2025 WNBA season while battling injuries. She’s spent the last few months working her way back to the court and finally got to do so for Team USA, marking her first game ever with the national team. <\/p>\n

“I’m just thankful,” Clark said<\/a>. “Any time you get to put this jersey on, it’s a little different.”<\/p>\n

While Clark didn’t play significant minutes on Wednesday, the fact that she got to play at all was enough for her. <\/p>\n

“More than anything, it makes me happy that I’m super sweaty right now and I got to play basketball,” Clark said.<\/p>\n

Clark and Team USA will spend the next week playing qualifier games, with their next game being a contest against Puerto Rico on Thursday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Caitlin Clark returned to action for the first time since July on Wednesday, leading Team USA to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-518398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}