Sophie Cunningham shreds WNBA refs for not protecting Caitlin Clark

Sophie Cunningham has continued the Fever’s trend of calling out officials — and sticking up for star Caitlin Clark.Following Indiana’s practice Saturday, Cunningham, who was ejected from a game where Clark had been shoved to the ground, told reporters that she was moving on from what happened against the Sun on Tuesday but acknowledged that referees need to do a better job of “protecting the star player of the WNBA.”“I’m not focused on the extracurricular activities,” Cunningham said, “and you know what? During that, it was just part of the game.I think the refs had a lot to do with that, it was a build-up of a couple of years now of them just not protecting the star player of the WNBA.

At the end of the day.I’m gonna protect my teammates, that’s what I do.”Cunningham, acquired from the Mercury in the offseason, committed a hard foul on Jacy Sheldon — who poked Clark near the eye earlier in the game — with less than a minute remaining in the fourth, dragging her to the ground as she neared the basket.That prompted shoving between Cunningham, Sheldon and others on the Fever and Sun, and it ended with Cunningham getting ejected and later fined by the league.Those tensions stemmed from Sheldon’s foul on Clark earlier in the game, when Sun star Marina Mabrey shoved Clark to the ground when a brief scuffle broke out and didn’t get ejected.Clark — averaging 19.9 points, 8.7 assists and 5.7 rebounds per game in her second WNBA campaign — and the Fever have stumbled to a 6-6 start, and after a 90-88 loss to the Liberty last month, head coach Stephanie White blasted officials for a “pretty egregious” discrepancy in free throws.She criticized officiating again following Tuesday’s chaos and said “you could tell it was going to happen.”“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 … you’ve got competitive women who are the best in the...