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Sophie Cunningham Got a Bitter Taste of Karma After Drawing Flagrant Foul in Fever-Sky

Kristen Wong|
Fever guard Sophie Cunningham was on the receiving end of a hard foul by Sky’s Dijonai Carrington early in Saturday’s game.
Fever guard Sophie Cunningham was on the receiving end of a hard foul by Sky’s Dijonai Carrington early in Saturday’s game. | Screengrab on Twitter/@UnderdogWNBA

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Indiana Fever

The spotlight has never shined brighter on the Indiana Fever than it has this WNBA season. Superstar guard Caitlin Clark has managed to stay healthy amid the team’s title-contending campaign but much more national attention has been cast on her teammate, Sophie Cunningham.

Cunningham made headlines for her comments opposing transgender participation in women’s sports as part of a recent ESPN profile on the Fever guard. Cunningham noted last week that she wanted to steer the conversation back to basketball, and as the online controversy continues to snowball into an unavoidable issue, that’s what she and Indiana have more or less tried to do.

In Saturday’s nationally televised road matchup against the Sky, Cunningham was going up for what she thought was an open layup when she got hit in the face by Chicago’s DiJonai Carrington, who was sprinting back on defense.

Carrington’s left arm made contact with Cunningham’s face and immediately sent the Fever guard to the ground. Cunningham’s shot went in, but she was visibly riled up about the hard foul and quickly got up to confront Carrington. The two exchanged heated words, and Cunningham had to be held back by one of her Fever teammates before the situation escalated any further.

The referees upgraded the foul to a Flagrant 2 upon review, ejecting Carrington and giving Cunningham a pair of free throws.

Watching the replay videos of the foul, it’s easy to argue that Carrington made contact with Cunningham’s head that was both unnecessary and excessive, thus falling under the umbrella of a Flagrant 2 foul.

Sophie Cunningham’s hard retaliation foul on Jacy Sheldon has come back to haunt her

The refs on the floor thankfully made the right call, even if Cunningham was pettily clapping at the Sky afterward. Those who have followed Cunningham’s brief Fever stint will remember that the veteran guard committed a similar aggressive foul of her own last season against the Sun, when Cunningham first earned a reputation as Clark’s enforcer.

Toward the end of the Fever-Sun game in June 2025, Cunningham was chasing down Jacy Sheldon (who now happens to play for the Sky) and wrapped her arms around Sheldon in a wrestling-type move to prevent her from attempting a layup. Cunningham was assessed a Flagrant 2 foul as a result and incited a feisty on-court scuffle between Fever and Sun players.

Over a year later, it would seem like Cunningham got a taste of karmic justice.

On top of it all, the player who fouled her, Carrington, shares some history with the Fever, too. During Caitlin Clark’s playoff debut in September 2024, the then-rookie guard got poked in the face by Carrington and ended the game with a black eye. No foul was called, as the contact from Carrington appeared to be accidental. Carrington later made clear that her poke wasn’t intentional, yet the moment still gained a lot of—and arguably too much—traction amid Clark’s historic rookie campaign.

The Fever (19–12) currently sit in fifth place in the league and certainly don’t need anymore distractions during the pivotal second half of their regular season. A loss to the Sky on Saturday would cause Indiana to tumble down the standings to eighth, with the middle of the pack looking extremely crowded and chockfull of postseason hopefuls.

As for Cunningham, she hasn’t been playing her best basketball of late and went 1-of-4 from the field in her last two games. She’s shooting a career-high 44.8% from beyond the arc but has been relegated to an off-the-bench role in her second campaign in Indiana, starting just three games this year.

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Kristen Wong
KRISTEN WONG

Kristen Wong is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. She has been a sports journalist since 2020 and has a bachelor’s in English and linguistics from Columbia University. Before joining SI in November 2023, Wong covered four NFL teams as an associate editor with the FanSided NFL network and worked as a staff writer for the brand’s flagship site. She is a lifelong Liverpool fan who enjoys solving crossword puzzles and hanging out at her neighborhood dive bar in NYC.

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