West Virginia Women’s Basketball head coach Mark Kellogg sent a clear message to his team last week. Win one game and then “send Caitlin Clark packing” in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. And now, his team will finally have the chance to complete both parts of that proclamation, as they are set to face off with Iowa on Monday night.
Most fans saw this comment as trash talk towards Clark. But Kellogg cleared the air about the quote ahead of their matchup on Monday, making it clear that he did not intend to trash talk Clark whatsoever.
“I wasn’t out to get Caitlin Clark,” Kellogg told reporters on Monday via 247 Sports. “It’s not Mark Kellogg versus Caitlin Clark. Somebody else in the room is the one that used the ‘packing’ line to me, and it turned into, ‘Well, guys, if we want to do something special, we have to win one and then we’d have to send Caitlin Clark home. You know how social media works. The clip just keeps getting shorter and shorter, and then finally by the end of it it was Mark Kellogg is calling out Caitlin Clark.”
It was a bit weird of Kellogg to call out Clark by name instead of just saying Iowa as a team was who they needed to bear. So it did certainly seem like a bit of trash talk at the time regardless of what he says now.
Regardless, it seems like the original Clark comment did at least fire up his team, which was clearly Kellogg’s intention. West Virginia guard Jordan Harrison shared with 247 Sports that her coach’s comments made her want to “make a statement” against Iowa and Clark.
“It definitely fired me up,” Harrison said. “I want a coach like that, that doesn’t back down from anybody. I’m just here to back him up. I don’t think anybody in the NCAA wants to play us. … We want to make a statement, make some history. They have all the pressure.”
It will sure be interesting to see how this matchup goes. And if there is potentially any bad blood after Clark heard the original comments from Kellogg.
