Sophie Cunningham's end-of-game hard foul on Jacy Sheldon immediately polarized WNBA fans, with some arguing she was acting as an "enforcer" while others saw it as a purely dirty move.
Late in the Indiana Fever's win over the Connecticut Sun on Tuesday night, Cunningham tracked down Sheldon and wrapped her arms around the Sun guard to prevent her from getting a shot off. A brief melee ensued with Cunningham and Sheldon going after each other as tensions boiled over—the heated incident ended in Cunningham, Sheldon and another Sun player getting ejected.
Rather unsurprisingly, Connecticut Sun coach Rachid Meziane wasn't a fan of Cunningham's initial foul. The Sun coach was asked about the fourth quarter incident in a postgame press conference and called Cunningham's foul "stupid" and "disrespectful."
"I did not understand," Meziane said, via Brian Haenchen of the Indy Star. "When you are winning the game by 17 points and you are doing this, to me, stupid foul — this is just disrespectful and I do not know how Lindsey [Allen] and Jacy [Sheldon] get ejected from the game when they did nothing.
"For me, it's just disrespectful to do that foul when you're winning the game by 17 points. Completely stupid."
Cunningham's foul was likely in retaliation to what happened to Fever star Caitlin Clark a quarter earlier, when Clark got poked in the face by Sheldon and then shoved to the ground by the Sun's Marina Mabrey. Sheldon received a Flagrant 1 while Clark and Mabrey got technicals.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Sun Coach Blasts Sophie Cunningham for ‘Stupid’ Move After Caitlin Clark Scuffle.