“All the headlines will read ‘Reeve cries foul.’ Bring it on. Bring it on. Because this s— was stolen from us.” Last WNBA season brought in a lot of eyes to the league, but the attention also brought out the skeletons left in the closet. If the entire 40-game long season and then the postseason was not enough for the flurries at the officiating inconsistencies, the last Finals Game between the New York Liberty and the Minnesota Lynx only highlighted the calls made by the referees, practically handing the title to Sabrina Ionescu and Co. No doubt, the Lynx HC Cheryl Reese wasn’t thrilled. Now we have moved to the 29th season. But one thing hasn’t changed– referees are still the villains.

Case in focus, Caitlin Clark. The golden pick of the Indiana Fever has again found herself at the eye of the storm where in the last four games for the Fever, the officials have made some calls that she hasn’t understood. Let’s talk about some of the unsure whistles:

• The Fever vs the Chicago Sky opener: In the 93-58 victory, with 4:39 left in the third quarter, Angel Reese positioned herself by shoving Natasha Howard to catch an offensive rebound, Caitlin went for the ball in the forward’s hands. But during that, her left arm seemingly shoved Reese to the hardwood. The foul to take was whistled for a personal and then upgraded to a Flagrant-1 because of “follow through for the extension of the left hand to Reese’s back,” as WNBA referee Roy Gulbeyan later explained. In the same action, the Sky No. 5 picked a double technical with the Fever’s center Aliyah Boston. And this was still not the only instance.
• Indiana vs the Liberty: In the 90-88 home defeat, calls made in the final 3 minutes of the play turned the outcome of the game. The most unbelievable one was Natasha Cloud not getting a whistle for being “all over Caitlin Clark,” as the broadcaster of the game Debbie Antonelli described, and making a physical contact through her moving left leg as Clark went for a shot with just 1.2 seconds left in the game. Just before that play, Lexie Hull’s shooting foul on Ionescu was also technically an incorrect whistle since offense-initiated contact not the defense, that play gave the visitors a 90-88 lead. There are instances outside of Indy as well.

The recent Washington Mystics and Atlanta Dream matchup where Brittney Griner stood as a screen while the rookie Sonia Citron just bumped into the Dream center to lay flat on the ground, breathless, only to hear no whistle. And illegal screens? Arguably happening, but selectively called. After the close 90-88 home loss to the Liberty, Fever’s HC Stephanie White, after the game, also pointed how “The disrespect [by the referees] for our team, right now, has been pretty unbelievable. So it’s disappointing that it doesn’t go both ways, or it hasn’t gone both ways.” She made it clear that, “We’re not looking for a change, we’re looking for consistency.” No wonder the fans and analyst Rachel DeMita are upset by the inconsistencies as the latter made her point in her latest podcast episode.

DeMita chimed in after reading an SB Nation article about the officiating in the WNBA. She didn’t hold back. “The problem that a lot of us have with the referees is it’s either very physical and they are calling everything or they’re missing calls. There seems to be inconsistencies in how the referees are calling certain games… If anyone of you guys has been in any of my watch parties for the games, I am always dumbfounded by how many times they call fouls on screeners and how many illegal screens are set in the WNBA.

“When you set a screen, you have to give the defender a step, okay. So, many players do not do that. Secondly, a lot of teams do not communicate with one another on defense so sometimes, a player will have four steps in advance. Like the screen is legally set, but (like Sonia Citron) will slam into somebody in the screen because their teammate is not calling out the screen is coming.

“Essentially what the WNBA refs call, if you fall on a screen, I don’t care, if you’re a screener and you fall down, if you’re the one running into the screen and you fall down, they will call a foul on the opposite person. I don’t care if the size discrepancy is different. It’s so bizarre to me.” But DeMita was not done with the article she had in hand.

She read what an official interviews by SB Nation said about the new followers of the league, calling them “wrong,” per Rachel’s conclusion, “‘If fans haven’t watched the WNBA game, until Angel Reese or Caitlin Clark or Cameron Brink… some of those new players to the league this year, they did have their eyes opened, I’m sure, in a very new way.'”

She continued, pointing out the larger issue with officiating across the league. “There’s a lot of inconsistencies, and it seems like the only thing that they’re trying to make consistent—and it was brought up in this article, and I think it’s hilarious because I’m always talking about this on my livestreams—the screens. They’re going to call fouls on the screens. Like of all things, they have to make sure that there’s no illegal screens. And yeah, there’s a lot of illegal screens.”

A lot has been said about WNBA officiating over the years. This year is no different either. That said, the officials did offer an explanation for why Caitlin Clark’s foul was upgraded to a Flagrant 1.

WNBA referee breaks down Caitlin Clark foul call in heated Fever-Sky clash

“Let’s not make it something that it’s not. It was just a good play on the basketball. I’m not sure what the ref saw to upgrade it, and that’s up to their discretion,” Clark said after the opener where she shoved the forward into the ground while trying to snatch the ball so she can’t make an easy layup on the triple-double performance night. Reese also said, “Basketball play. Refs got it right. Move on.”

Interestingly, WNBA referee Roy Gulbeyan, the crew chief for the Fever-Sky game, gave some insight into the decision. He explained why Caitlin Clark’s foul was ruled a Flagrant 1, even though she believed it was just a common take foul.

“Okay, the foul on Clark met the criteria for Flagrant Foul 1, for wind up, impact, and follow through for the extension of the left hand to Reese’s back, which is deemed not a legitimate basketball play, and therefore deemed unnecessary contact,” Gulbeyan told Chloe Peterson of Indy Star. But that wasn’t all!

He proceeded to explain why Reese and Boston were given technical fouls as well. “After the foul, there is a physical taunt technical on Boston and a verbal technical on Reese, which offset,” Gulbeyan said.

It’s clear that WNBA officiating will be under a microscope all season long. Especially now that the Indiana Fever will most likely miss the services of their talisman for the next 4 games due to a new left quad strain which the team said is different from the one she had in the preseason. And like Gulbeyan, the league’s officials might soon have to explain every controversial call they make.