{"id":678878,"date":"2026-03-24T18:07:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T18:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/678878\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T18:07:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T18:07:13","slug":"diana-taurasi-happy-that-caitlin-clark-is-wearing-her-team-usa-no-12-couldnt-think-of-anyone-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/678878\/","title":{"rendered":"Diana Taurasi happy that Caitlin Clark is wearing her Team USA No. 12: \u2018Couldn\u2019t think of anyone better\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Until a recent World Cup qualifying tournament game, when No. 12 hit the court for Team USA\u2019s women\u2019s basketball team, it was donned by legend Diana Taurasi. However, with Taurasi\u2019s retirement in 2025, the number became available, and WNBA star Caitlin Clark quickly snagged it.<\/p>\n<p>If anyone\u2019s worried that Taurasi might not want Clark, or any other player, to wear the number, those worries were quickly put to rest, with Taurasi saying it was \u201ccool to see.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI spent two decades wearing that jersey and that number, and I couldn\u2019t think of anyone better to take it and put it on and just have an amazing career. And Caitlin will do that,\u201d Taurasi <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/onsi\/womens-fastbreak\/news\/diana-taurasi-on-uconn-ncaa-tournament-pressure-pet-parenting-and-caitlin-clark-team-usa-number\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">told Sports Illustrated<\/a>. \u201cShe had a great qualifier down in Puerto Rico. It\u2019s just going to be fun to watch her play in the summer, in Germany, and then, the Olympics. No one better to wear the 12, and Caitlin\u2019s going to put some gold medals on that jersey, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Clark, who wears No. 22 with the Indiana Fever, made her Team USA debut earlier this month against Senegal and immediately made an impact, logging a double-double (17 points, 12 assists). She followed that with eight points, three rebounds, two assists and a steal in a blowout win against Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n<p>Clark scored 12 points and dished five assists in a blowout victory against Italy, totaled 14 points to go with six assists against New Zealand and capped the tournament with seven and seven in Team USA\u2019s 84-70 win against Spain.<\/p>\n<p>Clark, the top pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft, has averaged 18.5 points, 5.5 rebounds and 8.5 assists per game through two seasons. She is poised to become a fixture on the national team, much like Taurasi, who won six Olympic Gold medals with the squad (2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020 and 2024).<\/p>\n<p>Clark played against Taurasi in 2024 and said, \u201cThat\u2019s somebody I grew up idolizing and looking up to and wanting to be like one day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Taurasi told Sports Illustrated that she didn\u2019t have a say on whether Clark was allowed to wear the number.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou know, once I\u2019m out of things, I\u2019m out,\u201d she said. \u201cMaybe Sue (Bird), you know, she\u2019s a little bit more calculated than people think. So maybe that was a Sue job. That wouldn\u2019t surprise me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Until a recent World Cup qualifying tournament game, when No. 12 hit the court for Team USA\u2019s women\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":678879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[3777,62,67,132,68,232],"class_list":{"0":"post-678878","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-olympics","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us","13":"tag-wnba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116285488986009150","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}