The South Carolina Gamecocks squared off against the Iowa Hawkeyes in the tussle for the title. As the Gamecocks recovered from their slow start and were dominating Caitlin Clark & Co. at halftime, one thing that couldn’t escape the eyes of the fans was when the Gamecocks guard Raven Johnson fell on the floor and it wasn’t called a foul. On the other hand, a lot of South Carolina fans alleged that Clark and her team were given easy foul calls. This had a lot of fans calling out Clark and hinting towards rigged refereeing.

In such a heated environment, LSU star Angel Reese also chimed in with her point of view. Reese tweeted “i see how this game is about to go smh.” Notably, Reese sided with the Gamecocks fans and was furious at the foul on Johnson. Fans considered it natural for Reese to state her disapproval since she has been one of Clark’s biggest competitors.

In the NCAA 2023 Championship Finale, Clark had lost against Reese while the duo locked horns once again during the Elite Eight this year in which Clark trumped her arch-rival. Seeing Reese, fans also couldn’t stay back, and heavily trending tweets on the same issue came forward.

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The Iowa Hawkeyes won their Final Four matchup against the UConn Huskies in controversial fashion as well after an illegal screen was called on UConn’s Aaliyah Edwards during the final possession of the game, which caused a lot of fan backlash against Clark & Co. And something similar has happened this time as well.

What did the social media users have to say?

One user stated, “The referees are calling everything for #iowahawkeyes. Early in the 1st quarter they missed the offensive foul on #CaitlinClark. Smh.” The netizen reminded everyone that the refs had missed an offensive foul on Clark in the first half but called a foul for something similar on the other end.

Another netizen subtly pointed out that the game was rigged and spoke of the referees in a condescending tone. “Referees to South Carolina whenever anybody try to defend Caitlin Clark:”

One user was in fact happy that despite fouls not called out against Iowa, the Gamecocks were leading the game.”Despite @GamecockWBB having to play #CaitlinClark, #Iowa AND the referees, we are leading at halftime! #GoCocks”

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South Carolina fans cheered their team and asked them to give their best fight and put their best foot forward.“South Carolina is winning after a horrible quarter and horrible bias referees!!!! Keep pushing!!”

One user overtly stated that the referees were trying to defend Clark and instead avoided calling out fouls against her. “@WNBA it’s just disrespectful the way fouls aren’t being called because they want Caitlin Clark to win. The referee’s are supposed to be neutral.”

Another user was sad because according to him the referees were biased and were giving this game to Clark. “Love Caitlin Clark Game … but if y’all want her to win just give it to her… referees are LITERALLY GIVING THIS GAME TO THESE GIRLS! It’s sad.”

One user took a humorous dig at the referees stating that they would have more assists than Clark. “Who will lead Iowa in assists tonight, Caitlin Clark or the referees? The disparity of these foul calls is VERY telling”

While referees will always be a point of contention between rival fan bases, their supposed favoring of Clark and Iowa didn’t really bear any fruit as the Gamecocks lifted the National Championship after an 87-75 win. It’ll be interesting to see whether this discourse of Clark getting favorable calls continues in the WNBA where she’ll go up against the biggest names in women’s basketball.

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