Angel Reese 'not the villain' in Caitlin Clark narrative, Jemele Hill says amid growing WNBA rivalry

The Angel Reese-Caitlin Clark rivalry has another chapter closed after the WNBA found that claims of hateful speech toward Reese by Indiana Fever fans were "not substantiated."

The two young phenoms have been tied at the hip since they faced off in the 2023 national championship game, where Reese's LSU Tigers defeated Clark's Iowa Hawkeyes, and in the closing moments, Reese hit Clark with a "you can't see me" taunt.

It was a move that Clark took in good fun, saying Reese should not have been "criticized at all" and pointing at the nature of competitiveness.

But after a flagrant foul by Clark against Reese on Saturday, all the prior talk from each athlete about a lack of a rivalry seemed to falter.

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However, former ESPN host Jemele Hill said fans are looking too deep into Reese and Clark, even if they do actually "hate each other."

"This is ultimately a conversation about cultural competency. Angel Reese's very existence rubs a lot of people the wrong way. No one knows for sure how she feels about Caitlin Clark, but what we do know from Angel Reese's own public comments is that she feels a way that she isn't given more credit for how she also has added to the popularity of women's basketball in this moment," Hill said in a YouTube video on her channel in a segment called "Spolotics."

Hill also said Black athletes are more often "portrayed negatively by the media" than White athletes.

"If Black athletes are confident, they're considered cocky and arrogant. If they speak their mind, they're considered troublemakers or ungrateful - same tropes, different day," Hill added.

But Hill said the Reese-Clark "rivalry" should be treated like every other sports rivalry.

ANGEL REESE 'OWES' FEVER FANS 'AN APOLOGY' AFTER WNBA FINDS NO EVIDENCE OF HATEFUL REMARKS, SENATOR SAYS

"In sports, we love drama. We love the idea of athletes having to go through something. … We also love fiery competitors and athletes who talk their s--t and back it up. But when it comes to women, or more specifically these two women, we are struggling to see them as just two highly competitive athletes who often are in a position of having to compete for the same things," Hill said. "For some reason, when it comes to Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark, we simply refuse to view their competitiveness through that same lens. Maybe they hate each other, maybe they don't. But I want us to graduate to a point where whether or not they like each other is utterly irrelevant."

"Angel Reese is not the villain in Caitlin Clark's story, no more than Caitlin Clark is the savior in hers. Every interaction between them is not a think piece. If there are hard fouls, rough language and things get spicy, so be it. If you have no problem when male athletes compete hard against one another or expose their pettiness, do us all a favor and apply that same energy so we can actually enjoy this WNBA season."

Reese once claimed that increased viewership in women's basketball was "because of me, too" and "not just one person." She also recently reposted a TikTok that claimed she was "unsafe" while playing in Indiana, and she once also said Fever and Iowa fans had been racist toward her.

Clark and Reese were teammates in the WNBA All-Star Game last year.

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