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Marina Mabrey Breaks Silence on Caitlin Clark Shove With 8-Word Message

Connecticut Sun star Marina Mabrey addressed her shoving Caitlin Clark earlier this week.
Grant Young|
Jun 17, 2025; Indianapolis, Indiana, USA; Connecticut Sun guard Marina Mabrey (3) fouls Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark (22) in the second half at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Mandatory Credit: Trevor Ruszkowski-Imagn Images
Jun 17, 2025; Indianapolis, Indiana, USA; Connecticut Sun guard Marina Mabrey (3) fouls Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark (22) in the second half at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Mandatory Credit: Trevor Ruszkowski-Imagn Images | Trevor Ruszkowski-Imagn Images

It will take the women's basketball community a long time to forget the several scuffles that took place during the Indiana Fever's June 17 game against the Connecticut Sun.

One of these scuffles centered on Sun veteran Marina Mabrey. In the quarter, she shoved Fever star guard Caitlin Clark to the ground after Clark had a brief shoving match with Mabrey's teammate, Jacy Sheldon. This led to a brief tussle between the two teams, where Mabrey and Clark both received technical fouls.

And Mabrey not getting ejected is likely what prompted Sophie Cunningham to throw Sheldon to the ground with about a minute left in the game, which caused a brawl between the two sides.

This has turned Mabrey into a villain among the Fever's fan base. And during a June 19 Instagram live session alongside rookie teammate Saniya Rivers, Mabrey spoke about the fallout from this shove heard around the basketball world.

"Damned if I do, damned if I don't," Mabrey said when addressing a commenter on the live stream calling her out for shoving Clark, per an X post from @sportsfan6718.

The implication from Mabrey seems to be that she was merely defending Jacy Sheldon and having her back by shoving Clark. If she did defend Sheldon (which she did), she would have (and has) been villainized. And if she didn't, she likely would have been labeled as a bad teammate. This seems to be how Mabrey sees it.

While that was all Mabrey said about the entire exchange, Saniya Rivers went on a long rant calling fans out and defending Sheldon for the actions, as well as calling Cunningham out for her flagrant foul in the fourth quarter.

Regardless, it seems that Mabrey is ready to move on from this shove.

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Grant Young
GRANT YOUNG

Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.

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