Why were so many fouls called on WNBA opening weekend? There may be an adjustment period, but ‘this is what we want’

As the fouls piled up in their season opener, Indiana Fever head coach Stephanie White issued a reminder.

This is what we want, she told her team — as well as Wings forward Alanna Smith in a sideline chit-chat — while the league cleans up a game that became too physical over the past couple of seasons.

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“We need to overcorrect, so to speak, for lack of a better term, so that we have freedom of movement [and] so that it’s a free-flowing offense,” White told reporters following a 107-105 loss to Dallas at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis on Saturday.

Officiating is again the focal point in the WNBA, though this time it’s the sheer number of fouls that forced clunky opening-weekend action. The league made freedom of movement a point of emphasis, and officials are set on limiting the unchecked offensive lineman-level physicality.

White was among the coaches who spoke regularly on it, including after a scuffle that ended a Commissioner’s Cup game between the Fever and Sun last season. It became the headliner again in the postseason, culminating in Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve ripping the placement of her semifinals officiating crew as “f***ing malpractice and MVP runner-up Napheea Collier taking aim at the issue days later.

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WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert announced a “state of the game committee” ahead of the Finals to assess the issue and said last month at the WNBA collegiate draft there would be “more lines being drawn around that physicality as a result of some of the insights we gleaned” from the group.

Change requires growing pains. Players who have spent years in the league playing an (allowed) physical style as the means to an end of winning, as Collier said last week on NPR, are adjusting in real time to fouls being called that previously wouldn’t have received a whistle.

“In all of our offseason [conversations], [we] have asked the officials to call everything,” White said. “The challenge, and the question sometimes, is, is it consistent? So that will be the next growth phase and growth area. But this is what we need to clean up some of the stuff that we saw last year. So there is going to be frustration early. But, it’s necessary.”

The Fever-Wings matchup in afternoon primetime on ABC proved a high-octane affair as the first season opener in the league’s 30-year history where both teams scored at least 100 points. That’s the type of offense the league and some players want more of, but it came in spurts, packaged around 53 personal fouls. Five players collected two fouls each within the first quarter. Arike Ogunbowale wasn’t one of them, but was called for three in the second quarter alone.

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“I think we can see they’re calling it a little different,” Ogunbowale said. “We saw that in the preseason game. And I guess we just have to adapt, because that’s going to happen and unless we’re just going to be getting fouled out. … It’s been a long time since I had three fouls in the first half and almost fouling out.”

Ogunbowale was one of four players who finished with five fouls apiece. It matched her 2025 season finale, but that was one of only three games last year in which she hit that mark. She averaged 2.6 fouls per game, a number fairly consistent throughout her seven-season career.

“I guess, you know, just show our hands and see what we can do and hold better defense,” Ogunbowale said. “Yeah, it’s going to be a long season.”

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Three teams were called for at least 25 personal fouls within a game over the eight opening-weekend matchups last year, compared to eight teams this year. None more than the New York Liberty, who were called for 31 in a clunkily played 98-93 win over the Washington Mystics in overtime on Sunday. The Mystics were called for 27 in a game that stretched 2 hours, 41 minutes.

“That’s insane,” Stewart said. “We said it last game, I know it’s going to take time of figuring out what’s the standard of what’s going to be called. But there’s calls that are being called that are unnecessary on both sides. And then there’s no flow. So, I don’t know. I still don’t know.”

Liberty centers Jonquel Jones and Han Xu each fouled out, as did Mystics rookie Cassandre Prosper. They were among the seven players who fouled out this weekend; four fouled out in three fewer games last opening weekend.

The weekend’s officiating irritation is projection come to fruition. Dallas Wings rookie Azzi Fudd appeared genuinely confused in the preseason about what constituted a foul after hearing for years how the league is physical.

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Fever guard Sophie Cunningham responded to the comments on her podcast, “Show Me Something,” released the day prior to the season openers. She said it’s a result of the long-standing lack of consistency within games, as well as from game to game, and the clean-up job referees are undergoing.

“This is what they said, so you cannot fine me on this, because this is quoting what they said in our meeting,” Cunningham, who was fined heavily last season for comments on officiating, said. “They were like, ‘We have to do better. It was too physical. It got out of hand. We did not call things.’ So they are really dialed in.”

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It is a small sample size, and plain numbers don’t tell the entire story, but foul calls per game aren’t up by much. There were an average of 44.6 fouls called per game in 11 contests this weekend, compared to 41.5 in eight games a year ago.

“It’s going to be very … tick-tacky fouls called at the beginning of the season, and then as the season goes, it’s just like everyone’s beating the s*** out of each toward the end of the season,” Cunningham said. “That’s OK, because that’s how it always is.”

The key is whether referees will become consistent in what they call all the way through the Finals.