“Maybe I can control my emotions a little bit more, but honestly I didn’t want to. Sometimes a team needs that.” Last season, in a late August matchup against the Minnesota Lynx, Phoenix’s Sophie Cunningham caught a technical foul with 3:33 remaining on the game clock. If the first whistle wasn’t enough, the guard attracted yet another in the very next possession, chirping with Lynx’s Napheesa Collier. And with that, Cunningham saw her very first ejection in her five-year WNBA career. How she ended her comment on the ejection? “It’s a good question for the players association to see the ref situation.” Fast forward to now, the “enforcer” is in Indy, but some things never change. And it was visible in the Fever’s last matchup against the Connecticut Sun.

The theme of the entire matchup was decided when Sun’s Jacy Sheldon face-guarded and bumped Fever’s Caitlin Clark in the very first quarter, catching a quick personal foul. The fireworks, though, set out in the middle of the third quarter when Sheldon poked Clark as the latter hustled to get into the paint. The reaction? The OSU alum continued to taunt the Fever No. 22 who then pushed her away for some space. Right then, Sun’s Marina Mabrey shoved Clark to the floor as Tina Charles too came up to defend her teammate. The calls? Charles and Clark got technical, Mabrey’s technical, after the game, was upgraded to a flagrant-2, and Sheldon got a flagrant-1. But was anyone ejected? No. So came the ever-so fired-up Sophie Cunningham.

Setting out the buzzers that just might have been ringing in her ears the entire game, with just 46.1 seconds left to their winning cause, Cunningham followed Sheldon as the latter drove downhill to the basket. But before she could go for a layup, Cunningham bear-hugged her neck, pushing her face-first into the hardwood. It didn’t take a second for a fight to ignite and Sophie saw another ejection along with the agitators, Sun’s Sheldon and Lindsay Allen. But if it were all to happen again, would Cunningham change a thing? Would she control herself from, what many now call, “sending the message?” She has finally shared her thoughts. Fair warning: don’t expect an apology.

In her media availability tweeted by Outkick’s Clay Travis before the Fever takes on the Las Vegas Aces, Cunningham gave her reasoning.  “I’m just gonna be me. I don’t go in there and pre-determine anything. I need to focus and hit my shots, making sure I’m executing the schemes right. I’m not focused on the extra-curricular activities. 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 for a couple 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. I’m a team player.”

We have seen the taekwondo black-belt Cunningham sharing a close bond with the reigning league ROTY even before she entered Indiana. Remember their WNBA All-Star game interactions? If the friendship did not play majority of the part in her wanting to protect the heavily guarded player in her first two seasons in the professional world, the officials’ neglect certainly did. And she isn’t the only one pointing it out.

Debbie Antonelli, the announcer for the game, clearly laid it out as she saw it all unraveling in front of her eyes. “Blaming this all on the officials tonight. If they had taken care of business earlier, we wouldn’t be in this situation.” They kept repeating it too. They weren’t wrong. The officiating – or the lack of it – was the real issue here.

Fever coach Stephanie White has talked about the inconsistencies in their calls all season long. After Tuesday’s game, she said, “I think that it was pretty obvious that stuff was brewing when officials don’t get control of the ball game, when they allow that stuff to happen.”

But it’s not just this game. It has long been an issue that the league is not protecting their star player. Clark’s rookie year had its share of incidents too. Remember last season’s stats that revealed that the first-overall pick out of Iowa had most flagrant fouls done on her? 80% (4) of those came from Chicago Sky itself. Fans weren’t happy then, and they’re definitely not happy now. Even in the Liberty game on May 24, the Fever were down two. Final possession. Natasha Cloud made contact with Clark, and refs didn’t call a foul. 

So, Sophie’s had enough. And now, she’s doing what she feels needs to be done – protecting her teammate herself. She’s not just putting players on notice. She’s putting refs on notice, too. Former NBA All-Star Joakim Noah stating, “If I was the owner of the Indiana Fever, I would get a real enforcer in there to protect her.” Well, they did and Indy fans love it. 

Cunningham did pick up a fine after all this. But her stock with the Fever fanbase just went way up and made up for it. 

Sophie Cunningham cashes in while defending Caitlin Clark

It’s been a very busy week for Indiana Fever guard. After that wild clash with the Connecticut Sun, Cunningham found herself at the center of controversy and clearly, she’s not running from it. In fact, she might just be cashing in. Cunningham was fined twice for what went down in those final seconds against the Sun.

First, a reported $400 fine for the flagrant-2 she picked up after pushing Jacy Sheldon to the ground. Now, was she or her coach all that remorseful? Not really.  “You’ve got competitive women who are the best in the world at what they do … and when you allow them to play physical, and you allow these things to happen, they’re going to compete, and they’re going to have their teammates’ backs,” Fever coach Stephanie White said postgame. “It’s exactly what you would expect out of fierce competition.”

But you know while all of that was going down on the court, Cunningham’s social media was going up. According to analytics site Social Blade, Sophie gained 700,000 followers on TikTok and over 244,000 on Instagram in just three days. That’s nearly a million new fans riding with “the enforcer.” 

She now has over a million TikTok followers and more than 730K on Instagram. That kind of growth? Well, if a brand tried to do that the paid way, they’d be shelling out over a million dollars, says STN Digital. Cunningham’s already leaning into it. In a Thursday TikTok, she mouthed Selena Gomez lyrics: “I can’t keep my hands to myself – I mean I could, but why would I want to?” The clip hit 3.1 million views in 21 hours. 

Moreover, her jersey’s back-ordered till July 8. So while she got fined, Sophie definitely finessed the moment. And we will certainly find her protecting her teammates in every other game.