Star treatment? Not for Caitlin Clark — at least not on Saturday, as controversy erupted in the final seconds of the Indiana Fever’s narrow 90-88 loss to the reigning WNBA champion New York Liberty.
With the Fever trailing by two points and the game hanging in the balance, rookie sensation Caitlin Clark attempted to make a game-tying play. But as she went up for a potential buzzer-beater, Liberty guard Natasha Cloud applied heavy defensive pressure — enough, many argue, to warrant a foul. The referees, however, kept their whistles silent. No foul was called. Time expired. The Fever and their home crowd of more than 18,000 fans were stunned.
Fever head coach Stephanie White didn’t hold back in her postgame remarks.
“I thought she got fouled,” White said firmly. “It’s pretty egregious what’s been happening to us the last few games. A minus-31 free-throw discrepancy — and I might be able to understand it if we were just launching threes. But we’re not. We’re attacking the rim.”
Clark, visibly frustrated on the court, offered a more reserved response when asked about the no-call, telling reporters, “I don’t know,” and noting she hadn’t reviewed the footage yet.
But White doubled down, suggesting the Fever aren’t being given the same respect as other teams in the league.
“The disrespect right now for our team has been pretty unbelievable,” she said. “It’s disappointing that it doesn’t go both ways — or it hasn’t gone both ways.”
Clark finished the night with 18 points on 6-of-18 shooting. But the box score told a deeper story. The Liberty made 32 trips to the free-throw line, more than double Indiana’s 15 attempts — a disparity that proved too much to overcome in a tightly contested game.
Coach White also questioned the effectiveness of the WNBA’s internal review process, where teams can submit plays for evaluation.
“There’s a system for sending stuff in and communicating our grievances,” White said. “But I don’t know that I ever feel like the system works. We’re not looking for favoritism — we’re just looking for consistency.”
As one of the league’s most-watched new players, Clark has drawn headlines and crowds — but, as the Fever argue, not enough whistles. The loss drops Indiana to 1-7 on the season, but the team believes the margin between victory and defeat is being decided far too often at the scorer’s table, not on the hardwood.
