The thing about Caitlin Clark and the Connecticut Sun is that she never comes out of those games without bruises—physical or otherwise. In 2024, it was DiJonai Carrington poking her in the eye and Alyssa Thomas flattening her with a screen. Fast forward to 2025, and it’s Marina Mabrey and Jacy Sheldon who’ve assumed the mantle of Connecticut’s enforcers. Sheldon’s history with Clark goes back to the Big Ten wars—Ohio State versus Iowa. And on this particular night, as tensions boiled over, Fever head coach Stephanie White wasn’t surprised. In fact, she had already called it.

“I think it was pretty obvious that stuff was brewing, right?” White said postgame, her tone equal parts exasperated and vindicated. “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, all season long. It’s not just this game. It’s been happening all season long. This is what happens, right? This is what happens.”

What happened, precisely, was a stretch of basketball that resembled a WWE tag-team match more than a Commissioner’s Cup semifinal. It started when Sheldon poked Clark in the eye during the third quarter—a move that drew a Flagrant 1. Before the dust could settle, Marina Mabrey shoved Clark from behind, sending her to the hardwood.

It didn’t end there. Jacy Sheldon went coast-to-coast for a layup in the 4th Quarter, and Sophie Cunningham, channeling more black belt than basketball, bear-hugged Sheldon mid-air and took her to the floor. While the contact came as a surprise to many, HC White was just disappointed: “I started talking to the officials in the first quarter.”

White revealed further in the post-game press conference: “And we knew this was going to happen. You could tell it was going to happen. So, did they got to get control of it? They got to be better. They got to be better. And consistently call the fouls that are actually happening on the floor.”

White didn’t mince words. To her, this wasn’t about Clark drawing contact—this was about referees letting the temperature rise until someone got burned. She wasn’t alone in this opinion, though her counterpart on the Sun bench, head coach Stéphane Méziane, had a very different take. When asked about Cunningham’s foul on Sheldon, his frustration was palpable.

Connecticut Coach Backs Stephanie White, Blames Refs for Losing Control

“I did not understand,” Méziane said. “When you are winning the game by 17 points and you are doing this, to me, stupid foul—this is just disrespectful. … It’s just disrespectful to do that foul when you’re winning the game by 17 points. Completely stupid.”

That wasn’t all. Sheldon, Cunningham, and Sun guard Lindsay Allen were all ejected. Méziane was baffled: “They did nothing,” he said, referring to Sheldon and Allen. But even he circled back to the officiating, calling it inconsistent. “When it’s an away game, it will never be in our (favor). It’s why I say we lost our mind, instead of sticking to our game plan and focusing on our game.” What White and Méziane seemed to agree on—though through vastly different lenses—was that the officials had lost control of the game.

Basically, one saw it coming and pleaded for intervention; the other saw his players dragged into chaos and questioned the fairness of the calls. “You’ve got competitive women who are the best in the world at what they do, right?” White emphasized. “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. It’s exactly what you expect, right? Out of fierce competition.”

The moment was messy, emotional, and deeply human. But if you ask Stephanie White, it was also preventable. She saw the writing on the wall before the first whistle. The officials didn’t read it in time. And by the time they did, Caitlin Clark was on the floor again—another page in the same old story.