Kelly Komara, Purdue's associate head coach, expressed her delight over Caitlin Clark's appearance at Gainbridge Fieldhouse during Saturday's Indiana Pacers-Milwaukee Bucks game. The Pacers opened the NBA playoff series with a 117-98 victory over the Bucks.
During a timeout, the broadcast cameras focused on Clark, an Indiana Fever star, who was sitting courtside and announced her presence to the crowd.
An X/Twitter user, @nosyone4, shared a video of Clark waving to the crowd. The children of Fever coach Stephanie White went over to Clark and started waving with her.
Kelly Komara, who played alongside White at Purdue, where they led the Boilermakers to the 1999 national championship, reposted the video with a quote.
"This makes my 💛 happy!! My fav people. Well, minus you Steph!," Komara tweeted.
White attended the Bucks-Pacers game with her family while she was on call for ESPN broadcasting duties.
Meanwhile, Caitlin Clark, the WNBA Rookie of the Year, was in the Fieldhouse for the playoff game and to support the Fever's NBA counterpart. In her debut season with the Fever, she led them to the WNBA Playoffs for the first time since 2016.
Komara's Purdue, meanwhile, concluded their 2024-25 season at 10-19. The Boilermakers only had three wins in the Big Ten and failed to qualify for any postseason tournament.
Kelly Komara once described Purdue's defensive chaos trying to guard Caitlin Clark
During an episode of The Indiana High School Sports Association Insider podcast, Kelly Komara recounted the chaotic strategies employed by Purdue in their attempts to defend against Caitlin Clark.
In a conversation with Stephanie White and Jane Schott, where White spoke about how difficult it is to try and slow down the former Iowa guard, Komara shared an anecdote about her experience guarding Clark during a regular season game in January 2024, which the Hawkeyes won 96-71 at Mackey Arena.
"This is crazy. It’s the end of maybe a quarter or a half — I’m not sure which — but we were going to take a foul on her," Kelly Komara said. "Caitlin Clark brings it over close to where Katie Gearlds is, and we were going to tell Jayla Smith to foul.
"We all did the best we could. At the end of the day, it was what it was. But somebody like that, everybody has to cross their fingers and kinda throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks with her."
Clark finished the game with triple-double numbers, registering 26 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists.
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