During the Indiana Fever-Minnesota Lynx game on Sunday, Fever guard Sophie Cunningham took a direct elbow to the face from Minnesota Lynx forward Nia Coffey. However, after a review, the officials controversially called a defensive foul against Cunningham herself. However, the call itself didn’t surprise sportscaster and journalist Linda Cohn, even though she did not agree with it. Instead, it was the inaction of Fever head coach Stephanie White.
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Cohn reacted to the controversial foul call while speaking on The Linda Cohn Show.
“They said, ‘No, Sophie Cunningham deserved the foul.’ And Sophie’s like looking up and like, are you kidding me? My issue was, unless I missed it, I didn’t see Sophie Cunningham’s head coach, Stephanie White, come to her aid like all head coaches should,” Cohn said on the clip on her Instagram page.
“When number one, their player gets elbowed in the face. And number two, when they did not get the call that they deserved that would have helped the team. Now, Indiana ends up losing to Minnesota. I think it was by eight points, but this is ridiculous.”
The play in question happened midway through the second quarter. Sophie Cunningham was guarding Nia Coffey closely when the Lynx forward pivoted to create space, and her elbow struck Cunningham squarely in the mouth and jaw.
The call that followed, however, went against Cunningham. Referees also stopped play and reviewed the sequence for a potential “hostile act.” However, instead of assessing an offensive or flagrant foul against Coffey, officials upheld a defensive personal foul against Cunningham.
The verdict was that Cunningham had committed a defensive reach-in foul by making illegal body contact and pushing, and that happened to Coffey before the pivot and the subsequent elbow.
Fans, analysts, and sports commentators have criticized the decision. Fox reporter Mike Chappell posted about the incident on X, writing, “WNBA refs just miss too many calls.”
Chappell wasn’t wrong. The June 24 flagrant foul incident involving Cunningham’s teammate Caitlin Clark that led to Alyssa Thomas receiving threats on social media all started because the officials failed to call the foul in real time.
Shortly after Chappell’s post, NFL reporter Ed Werder shared with the caption, “The question is whether it’s deliberate.”
The fact that a Dallas Cowboys insider who doesn’t report on the WNBA also noticed and posted about the call is why it wasn’t surprising to see Cohn writing that the league’s officiating is at an all-time low.
She captioned her clip, writing: “The officiating in the WNBA can’t be any worse than it is right now. The officiating in the WNBA can’t be any worse than it is right now.”
As Cohn mentioned, the Indiana Fever ultimately went on to lose the game 108-100, ending their five-game winning streak. Perhaps if that call had gone differently, the final score might have been different.
Regardless, the Indiana Fever will now turn their attention to their next game. They will be hoping to bounce back against the Las Vegas Aces, an equally formidable opponent.