CHICAGO — Earlier, Caitlin Clark suggested that WNBA watchers should use the Magic 8 Ball to determine when she will reach the total number of technical fouls that earn her a league suspension.
If your trinket predicted August 8th, it was correct – at least for a few hours.
The Indiana Fever guard picked up his eighth technical foul of the season during Saturday’s 90-86 win over the Chicago Sky. That call would trigger an automatic one-game suspension from the league.
But the Fever immediately appealed the technical and, less than two hours after the game ended, the WNBA overturned the call.
“I just hope the league makes the right decision,” a humbled Clark said after the game, long before the WNBA acted, “and hopefully I can play on Tuesday.”
She, like the Fever, will host the New York Liberty, but not before going through another technical foul.
Indiana’s star guard drove past Chicago’s Natasha Cloud in the third quarter, absorbing a shot and making contact with the top official as Clark’s momentum carried her out of bounds.
After the whistle, Clark could be seen asking, “For what?” to the officer who called the technician.
“(The ref) said I ran into her. I’ve already seen it on tape,” Clark told ESPN’s Holly Rowe on the court after the game. “So we’ll let the league decide, but it wasn’t intentional or anything.”
According to a pool report distributed later Saturday, crew chief Maj Forsberg said “Clark is believed to have intentionally made contact” and was therefore technically assessed.
Fever coach Stephanie White was also given a technical statement to argue the Clark decision.
“My technique was to say, ‘That’s bullshit,'” White said after the game. “Even though I heard the f-bomb the whole freaking game. My technique was to say ‘That’s bullshit.’ That’s a bad decision.
“Accidental contact when you get out of control. And I thought she (fellow officials) should have come up to her and talked to her about it. … That’s — it happens all the time in the game. Officials have to be aware in those moments, and that didn’t happen.”
Clark still finished with 26 points and 11 assists in the win. It was Clark’s eighth career game with 25 or more points, 10 or more assists and five or more 3-pointers; all other players in league history have four such games between them.
“Especially after the technical, it was, what, an 8-point game, a 9-point game going into the fourth?” Clark said after the game. “I think I just focused knowing my team needed me; you can’t focus on that so much. You have to refocus. Next play, next possession. What does my team need here?”
Clark’s on-court demeanor has been under the microscope all season, and she’s defiant that she won’t curb her competitive spirit while admitting the Fever need the league’s third-leading scorer and second-leading assister on the floor.
Clark held a suspension line in her rookie season. The limit then was seven technical fouls, and Clark picked up her sixth with two games remaining in the 2024 regular season.
Despite only playing 13 games in 2025 due to injury, she picked up two technicals last year, the same as last season (15 percent of her games). That frequency nearly doubled in Clark’s third season. Had Saturday’s call not been canceled, she would have gotten techs in 29 percent of her appearances this year.
All of her first seven technicals were a combination of her clapping at the officials, demonstratively throwing her hands in their direction to complain or getting into a fight with an opposing player, including Janelle Salaün, DeWanna Bonner and Saniya Rivers.
Clark isn’t the only All-Star in line for a suspension for accumulating technical fouls this season. Angel Reese has seven technical fouls and the Phoenix Mercury’s Kahleah Copper has six. Reese served a suspension through the 2025 season due to the accumulation.
Sabreena Merchant contributed to this report.
