The WNBA has suspended Alyssa Thomas for one game for “recklessly making contact with her fist to the throat area of Caitlin Clark,” the league announced on Thursday afternoon. The play, which occurred in the second quarter of the Phoenix Mercury’s 111-109 win over the Indiana Fever on Wednesday night, was initially not called a foul, but was upgraded to a Flagrant Foul 2 Penalty.
WNBA officially rules on Alyssa Thomas’s controversial foul on Caitlin Clark
On Wednesday night, the Indiana Fever head coach Stephanie White admonished officials for not blowing the whistle on a “cheap shot” by Alyssa Thomas on Caitlin Clark. One day later, the WNBA has officially suspended Thomas.
Noa Dalzell is a senior writer covering the WNBA and all of women’s basketball for Breakaway, SB Nation’s women’s sports vertical, as well as the Celtics for CelticsBlog.
After the game, Fever head coach Stephanie White admonished the officials for not making the call.
“The fist in the throat is crazy,” White said. “It’s crazy. It’s dangerous.”
She also criticized a separate instance in the game in which they reviewed a reckless closeout, but did not upgrade it to a penalty.
“Number one, you gotta call it. It’s absolutely egregious and utterly disrespectful,” White said. “And then number two, you’re aware of what happened two nights ago, and that shit still happens? Absolutely unacceptable. Absolutely unacceptable. And the reckless closeout that they actually reviewed? And the foot still comes down on the defender’s foot that wasn’t upgraded? Absolutely disrespectful. We have a generational talent and a WNBA superstar who had two cheap shots right there that weren’t called. And I just say again: absolutely unacceptable.”
White, who previously coached Thomas when both were members of the Connecticut Sun organization, said that she feels Clark is officiated differently from other players in the WNBA.
“We spent all offseason looking at officiating. All offseason,” White said. “And I still say the one thing that we keep asking for is consistency. She is not called the same way everybody else is called.”
Officiating has been a topic of discussion for several years now, with several players complaining this season that fouls were called at a higher rate. Still, though most have agreed that referees have been more willing to blow their whistles, the complaints about the way the game is governed has continued.
Clark ended up leaving the game early in the third quarter with an aggravated back, and White said she did not know if the play contributed to her injury. She finished the game with 19 points and 8 assists in 20 minutes. It was the second game in a row in which the Fever faced off against the Mercury; Indiana was victorious in the first contest.
The Fever will next host the Los Angeles Sparks on Sunday, and then will be off for a week until they face the Las Vegas Aces on July 5th.
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