Sophie Cunningham Blasts WNBA Refs for Not Protecting Caitlin Clark

Sophie Cunningham has defended Caitlin Clark on the basketball court, and now she’s defending her off the court.

After the Fever wrapped up practice on Saturday, Cunningham, who has already earned herself one ejection this year while defending Clark, blasted WNBA referees for not doing more to protect the league’s sole superstar.

“I’m not focused on the extracurricular activities,” Cunningham said, “and you know what? During that, it was just part of the game. I think the refs had a lot to do with that; it was a build-up of a couple of years now of them just not protecting the star player of the WNBA. At the end of the day. I’m gonna protect my teammates, that’s what I do.”

Those words are music to the ears of Fever and Caitlin Clark fans who have watched, bewildered, as the league has allowed opposing players to brutalize Clark regularly.

An example of this occurred earlier this week, when Connecticut Sun player Jacy Sheldon raked Clark across the face. Then, fellow Sun player Marina Mabrey came up and knocked Clark to the floor.

The decision of the refs not to eject Mabrey led to Cunningham taking action against Sheldon later in the game.

Cunningham made similarly critical comments about the referees on Tuesday after the game against the Sun.

“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,” White told reporters. “It’s exactly what you expect out of fierce competition. I started talking to the officials in the first quarter, and we knew this was going to happen. You could tell it was going to happen. So they got to get control of it. They got to be better.”

Cunningham is in her first year with the Fever.