The basketball world wanted to hear Indiana Fever superstar Caitlin Clark discuss the shove that knocked her to the court amid a series of scuffles, technical fouls and ejections that dominated her squad’s 88-71 victory at home over the Connecticut Sun on Tuesday night.
The reigning Rookie of the Year didn’t bite.
“You guys came for basketball; let’s talk about basketball,” she told reporters.
But media members were fixated on the shove from the Sun’s Marina Mabrey that sent Clark careening to the court. Mabrey was one of several players given a technical foul in the initial scuffle, which intensified into more fights as the game drew on.
The battle began when Connecticut’s Jacy Sheldon appeared to hit Clark’s eye during a drive to the bucket. The two guards started pushing and shoving before Mabrey intervened.
At the time, fans and commentators thought Mabrey could be ejected for the contact. She wasn’t.
“The contact made by Mabrey did not rise to the level of an ejection,” referee Ashley Gloss said in a postgame report. “Additionally, [it] did not meet the criteria for a flagrant foul penalty two.”
The ejections came later, when Indiana’s Sophie Cunningham committed a hard foul on Sheldon near the end of the game. Cunningham, Sheldon and Connecticut’s Lindsay Allen were all ejected from the final fracas.
Cunningham wasn’t apologizing, posting a photo of her shrugging on social media after the game.
“I did not understand,” Sun coach Rachid Meziane said of Cunningham’s aggression. “When you are winning the game by 17 points and you are doing this, to me, stupid foul — this is just disrespectful. … Completely stupid.”
The Fever’s victory sent it to the final of the WNBA’s in-season Commissioner’s Cup. Indiana will visit the Minnesota Lynx for a shot at the trophy on July 1.
• Liam Griffin can be reached at lgriffin@washingtontimes.com.
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