WNBA Boilers: Fever Coach Stephanie White Calls For League to Improve Officiating
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An extremely chippy and physical game between the Indiana Fever and Connecticut Sun has coach Stephanie White calling on the WNBA to improve its officiating across the league. She believes the officials' inability to "get control of the game" on Tuesday night led to a few heated altercations between the two teams.
Things began to heat up in the third quarter of Tuesday night's game when the Sun's Jacy Sheldon poked Fever star Caitlin Clark in the eye while trying to defend her. That resulted in a scuffle between the two teams.
Physicality escalated in the fourth quarter, when Sheldon drove to the basket and was tackled by Indiana guard Sophie Cunningham. That sparked another brouhaha, in which coaches from both teams got involved.
Things were HEATED between the Sun and Fever tonight 😳
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) June 18, 2025
-Caitlin Clark T'd up
-Marina Mabrey T'd up
-Jacy Sheldon assessed flagrant
-Sophie Cunningham ejected pic.twitter.com/CUnso6z4a9
Indiana defeated Connecticut 88-71, but that was only part of the storyline. After the game, White called on the league to work on its officiating so that dust-ups don't escalate into something more serious.
“Players are faster, they're better, they're bigger, they're stronger,” White said, per Chloe Peterson of the Indianapolis Star. “They're as good as they've ever been there, as athletic as they've ever been. The game is fast. Now, things are happening quickly. Everybody's getting better, except the officials. So we have to find a way to remedy it. I mean, you've heard every coach talk about it, so I don't know what the answer is.”
There were some physical moments throughout Tuesday night's game, paired with plenty of chatter back-and-forth. That's the nature of basketball, especially at the professional level. But what White doesn't want to see is the competitiveness turn into physical altercations.
“I think it was pretty obvious that stuff was brewing, right?” White said. “When the officials don't get control of the ballgame, when they allow that stuff to happen, and it's been happening all season long … you've got competitive women who are the best in the world at what they do, and when you allow them to play physical, and you allow these things to happen, they're going to compete, and they're going to have their teammates backs. It's exactly what you expect out of fierce competition."
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Dustin Schutte is the publisher of Purdue Boilermakers on SI and has spent more than a decade working in sports journalism. His career began in 2013, when he covered Big Ten football. He remained in that role for eight years before working at On SI to cover the Boilermakers. Dustin graduated from Manchester University in Indiana in 2010, where he played for the men's tennis team.
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