A couple of weeks ago, on a Sunday night, I joined my mother for a quick meal at KFC. While waiting for our food to cook, I was scrolling X, and noticed yet another tweet discussing Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, comparing which player is having a bigger impact on the WNBA season. I could not help myself, and I laughed at the comment being made.

My mother looked at me and made a face.

I should really back up. I have to admit, for the first time I can remember, I am actually paying attention to the WNBA season this year in a way I have never have before. I know the league has been around since 1997, but I could not be bothered to pay it any attention. To be fair, it is not like the ladies who graduate from Michigan Tech are destined for the league, and the Huskies are the women’s college basketball team I watch the most from year to year.

However, over the past few seasons, there has been a young woman who has captured the interest of much of the country. What Clark has done for women’s basketball at the college level has put on the map, at least as far as I can see. She is not alone, the play of other impressive women like Reese, Cameron Brink, and Paige Bueckers has heightened the attention on the game.

All that said, when Clark was drafted by the Indiana Fever, I found myself paying attention. As she went through the short training camp with teammates like Aliyah Boston, I was paying closer attention. I admit, I was consuming every tweet, every video clip, every news story I could find.

That all culminated in the decision to pick up the WNBA’s League Pass for this season. I started watching games on nights when I did not have a game to cover.

I say all that to bring us back to dinner. My mother asked me what was so funny, and I said that i was just reading another take on the Clark/Reese battle for the WNBA’s Rookie of the Year. She asked me a simple question, “What is the closest WNBA team to us?”

I thought about it, and remembered that there was one in Minneapolis, the Minnesota Lynx, who have won the WNBA title four times.

She asked if the Fever were going to play the Lynx any time soon. I looked at the schedule and exclaimed, “Saturday!” She suggested we look into getting tickets.

I looked it up and found us a pair of $39 tickets for the game. We did not care where the seats were, just that we were going to go to a game.

On Saturday, we made the trek to Minneapolis, a trip that has been made far easier in recent years by the completion of the expansion of Wisconsin Highway 29 west from Wausau. We made it to our hotel so early in the afternoon that we needed to return in an hour, as our room was not yet ready for us to check-in.

After grabbing dinner, we made our way to Target Center, which I have never been to before. To be honest, I had not been to a professional basketball game of any kind since seeing one of Dr. J’s final NBA games in Milwaukee as a child.

We drove past the Vikings’ new field, U.S. Bank Stadium, and there was a home preseason game that night, so traffic in the right lane in both directions was at a stand still near the field.

Eventually we made it past that and got off near the Target Center. Another fact I was not aware of is that the Target Center is right next to Target Field, the home of the Minnesota Twins. Oh, and they were at home that night as well.

We found a parking deck that was about an eight-minute walk from Target Center. After figuring out how to pay for parking, we walked over to the arena. As we got closer, we could see all kinds of fans wearing Fever gear, specifically Clark shirts and jerseys.

After we got inside the arena, the scene was wild. You would think the Fever were the home team. We walked the entire first floor concourse, and there were just a handful of people wearing Lynx gear. There were tons of people, myself included, wearing Clark’s Fever jerseys, Clark’s Fever shirts, or even Clark Iowa jerseys and shirts. I don’t think I have ever seen a professional game like that where the opposing player’s shirts were more prevalent than the home team’s gear.

Throughout the game, the ovation when Clark made a basket was of a similar level to when the Lynx scored. The Fever lost the game 90-80, but you would not know it from the volume of cheers whenever she made a key play.

Our seats were truly in the nosebleeds, which made it tough to follow what she was doing closely, but as I was watching, I realized that I could see how the whole play developed, and that made it exciting in its own way. I could start to see what she was seeing, why she would make a pass that would end up out of reach of her teammates. It wasn’t that she was trying to miss her teammates, she was trying to predict that they could get to where she was putting the ball, much like how Wayne Gretzky saw the game of hockey several steps ahead of everyone else on the ice.

She finished the game with a team-high 23 points, eight assists and seven turnovers, but I think six of those came on passes that her teammates did not pick up in time.

The one thing that struck me most about seeing her live was not how she played, but rather the sheer number of young girls I saw walking around the arena in a jersey or a shirt with her name on it. Clark is making an incredible impact on the game, and on young girls’ lives.

And she is not alone. What Reese and Brink have also done as rookies this year has also been extremely impressive. The sky appears to be the limit for what this group of young women will do for the league over the next several seasons.

My mom and I are already planning a return visit to Minneapolis to see the matchup again next year.