Despite Caitlin Clark’s protests, the technical foul assessed against her in the Indiana Fever’s 86-77 win over the Phoenix Mercury on Monday, June 22 will stand.
The WNBA confirmed to IndyStar, part of the USA TODAY Network, Thursday that Clark’s fifth technical foul of the season won’t be rescinded after the league conducted a review at the Fever’s request.
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Clark was teed up for clapping during a confrontation that also resulted in offsetting technical fouls on Sophie Cunningham and DeWanna Bonner, in addition to Myisha Hines-Allen and Alyssa Thomas.
“It’s ridiculous. I got a technical for clapping, so we should all just go on the calendar now and pick a game that I’m going to be suspended for if I’m going to get technicals for clapping,” Clark said on Monday. “If any technical should be taken away, it should be that one…I don’t understand it.”
Under WNBA rules, a player or coach is automatically suspended for one game upon receiving their eighth technical foul during the regular season. Every two additional technical fouls received during the regular season will result in an additional one-game suspension.
The Fever put in an official appeal on Clark’s technical, which Fever head coach Stephanie White described as a “process.”
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“We have to send in some stuff to the league and appeal the technical,” White said on Wednesday ahead of the Fever’s loss to the Mercury. “It’s something we’ve done throughout the course of the year, something I’m sure we’ll continue to do. But yeah… you have to send in the clips, you have to send in the appeal, and then you wait to hear what happens.”
The decision from the league was handed down on Thursday, June 25, determining that Clark was deserving of the technical. She was told by referee Gerda Gatling that it was assessed for “clapping and instigating” during the fourth-quarter dust-up between the Fever and Mercury on Monday.
The behavior falls under the unsportsmanlike conduct category.
“Players generally know what’s permissible in terms of a heat of the moment response,” Sue Blauch, the WNBA’s head of referee performance and development, told USA TODAY last month. “We never want to adjudicate passion out of the game … but overreactions to a call or a no-call … clapping at an official, waving ’em off, things like that. Obviously there’s some magic words that fall into that category.”
Clark is officially three technical fouls away from a one-game suspension with 26 more regular-season games left in the season. And she’s not the only one. Clark and Atlanta Dream forward Angel Reese are tied for the technical fouls this season with five each.
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Clark exited the Fever’s 111-109 loss the Mercury early after landing on Phoenix’s Valeriane Ayayi on a 3-point attempt and tweaking her back. The extent of her back injury isn’t clear.
Earlier in the night, Clark was on the receiving end of a fist to the throat by Thomas. No foul was initially called on Thomas for the play, but the contact was later upgraded to a Flagrant Foul 2 and one-game suspension by the league on Thursday.
When Clark does return to the lineup, White said the guard needs to play with a certain level awareness as she approaches suspension territory.
“Certainly I think there are some that we could do without. There are natural things that happen that the energy of the game creates when you do get those,” White said. “But there are some that we can be a little bit more in control of. And so yes, we’ll continue to remind (Clark) and I think she has to have an awareness.”
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Clark said she isn’t going to change the way she plays, adding, “I’m going to play with passion and if they’re going to give me a technical foul for clapping, that’s their choice.”
Reach USA TODAY National Women’s Sports Reporter Cydney Henderson at chenderson@gannett.com and follow her on X at @CydHenderson.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Caitlin Clark’s fifth technical stands, won’t be rescinded by WNBA
