Iowa Hawkeye’s hoops star Caitlin Clark is box office, and Jim Boeheim is willing to fight for her honor as the best player in the history of women’s college basketball.
“Some expert says, ‘Well, she hasn’t won a championship.’ If I ever see that guy, I’ll just punch him,” the legendary Syracuse men’s basketball coach said on Dan Dakich’s “Don’t @ me” show. “Unless he’s really big. I won’t do it if he’s really big. But, these people, how do they even get jobs saying stuff like that?”
In the interview, Boeheim also mentions that Clark was the only player he turns on the TV for in men’s or women’s basketball at the college and professional levels.
It would appear that Boeheim was calling out former Duke great Jay Williams for his comments regarding Clark, in which he refused to call her “great” setting that term aside for championship winners.
Standing at 6-foot-3, Boeheim could have a slight height advantage over Williams in a fight, but Williams is nearly half his age at 42 versus the legendary coach’s 79.
“I think she is the Stephen Curry of women’s college basketball,” Williams said on ESPN College Gameday on Feb. 17. “I am unwilling, and maybe it’s more the Kobe mentorship around me, to say that she is great yet. I think she is the most prolific scorer the game has ever seen. I hold great for the levels of immortality or the pantheon to when you win championships. That’s just me.”
Williams went on to say Diana Taurasi was his women’s college basketball GOAT, “White Mamba,” with three consecutive NCAA championships at UConn alongside coach Geno Auriemma.
“You know, there should be certain things you say that disqualifies you from ever being on radio or TV again,” Boeheim continued. “And to bring that up with Caitlin Clark or Karl Malone or John Stockton or people like that, they make their teams so much better. And without them, the Utah Jazz wouldn’t have won too many games without those two guys.”
It is unlikely that Boeheim truly didn’t know it was Williams, a Duke great who won the national title in 2001; but the legendary Orange coach never actually faced the Blue Devils during his three-year stay at the college.
