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Stephanie White had just about had it — the final straw in a night full of eyebrow-raising calls came right after Caitlin Clark’s “I don’t know” about the final play. Clark looked exhausted and defeated after arguing with the refs turned out to be just as fruitful as yelling at a vending machine. After all, she was heartbreakingly close to passing Courtney Vandersloot for the most 20-point, 10-assist games in WNBA history. But alas, a poke and a tug were all it took to derail history. And it is not like it happened once. All night long, White looked like someone playing whack-a-mole with injustice against her team.
In the final play of the game, the Fever were down 2 with 2.9 seconds left. Caitlin Clark received the inbound pass at the top of the key. Defended by Natasha Cloud, Clark put the ball on the floor, but it was poked out, resulting in a no-shot. A replay even showed Cloud pushing her shoulder into Clark’s the moment the ball came loose. But the referees did not blow the whistle, and the game ended there. Clark and her teammate Sophie Cunningham were in disbelief as they continued to protest the call, but to no effect. And with the call costing them a crucial game against the champions, Coach Stephanie White just had to put an end to the disrespect her team receives.
steph white:
“i think it’s pretty egregious, what’s been happening to us the last few games. -31 free throw discrepancy. i might be able to understand it if we’re just chucking threes—the disrespect right now for our team has been pretty unbelievable.” pic.twitter.com/B7pNMaTZUc
— cc akgae (@clrkszn) May 24, 2025
The match had eyes across the country watching closely and incited controversy across the internet. However, for the Fever fans from last year, the disrespect isn’t new.
The Caitlin Clark and Co. disrespect must stop
While the calls appear harsh to the new fans, it simply became the norm last year. And just like Stephanie White, Christie Sides had given the officials a piece of her mind as well. “The whole 40 minutes [Clark] is in the game — on both ends — she’s getting beat up. She keeps fighting.” Sides said last year, “I just feel like we need to get the same calls that they’re getting on the other end. We’re just not getting those same calls. I’m going to fight like hell for them.” Although Fever fans disagreed with Coach Sides on a lot of things, this wasn’t one.
Such treatment being afforded to the face of the league does nobody any favors. Not only does it invite further criticism of the league and its officiating, but it also puts star players like Clark at an increased risk for injury. “I think everybody’s physical with me, they get away with things that probably other people don’t get away with,” Clark said during her rookie year. And while many ask why such calls or no-calls become a huge issue when Clark is at the center, the answer is simple: Business.
The Fever will be playing in 41 nationally-televised games this season, and if the broadcast companies want them to live up to expectations, the availability of star players is key. And with teams such as the Chicago Sky moving their games against the Fever to the bigger United Center, the unavailability of players like Caitlin Clark in an already short season hurts the revenue and viewership of the league as well. This was evident in the playoffs last year when the Las Vegas Aces and New York Liberty’s contest in the playoff semifinals attracted only 929,000 viewers. While this was still a significant increase from previous years and the highest WNBA semifinal viewership in two decades, it fell short of the 1.8 million viewers who tuned in for the Indiana Fever vs. Connecticut Sun playoff opener and the 2.5 million viewers for Game 2 of that same series (which set a new WNBA playoff viewership high on cable).
Now, while that is one in-the-face reason, if we go beyond and look at basic integrity, no one is demanding preferential treatment for the Fever at all. So, yeah, business and reputation will both be at stake if things don’t change.
The post Indiana Fever HC Launches Direct Shot Against WNBA Refs Over Caitlin Clark & Co. ”Disrespectful” Treatment appeared first on EssentiallySports.
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