Alyssa Thomas punched Caitlin Clark in the throat, knee’d her in the groin, and stepped over her body while she lay on the floor. And the refs didn’t call a single thing. Clark left the game in the third quarter with a back injury, and the Fever lost a game they were right in the middle of.
But what makes this whole thing so much worse isn’t Thomas. It’s not even the refs. It’s the woman standing on the Indiana Fever sideline, Stephanie White, who used to coach Alyssa Thomas herself.
And her reaction to all of it was almost disturbingly calm. It’s as if Alyssa Thomas was just following the plan of Stephanie White to neutralize Caitlin back during their days together in the Connecticut Sun. Did Caitlin Clark’s injury just confirm and reveal Stephanie White’s anti-Caitlin Clark plan?
Let me know down in the comments. Now listen to Stephanie White, having coached AT before, were you surprised uh uh about the incident? Listen to Stephanie’s reply.
I’m back to see it. Um yeah, I was surprised. Um I was more surprised that it wasn’t seen by the officials in real time. So, Stephanie says she would have she was surprised she didn’t see it in real time. As you can see right here, Stephanie White clearly saw it as I broke down. You see?
Seen by both the official and Stephanie White. Let’s talk about exactly what happened, because the replay doesn’t lie. With about 6 minutes and 50 seconds left in the second quarter, Clark goes down to the floor during a loose ball scramble, and Thomas is right there on top of her.
Thomas presses her knee into Clark’s groin while Clark is already going down, then puts a closed fist directly into Clark’s throat, and then, after all of that, steps right over her body like she’s a piece of furniture on the floor. Not a basketball play, not incidental contact. A knee to the groin, a fist to the throat, and then Thomas just walks away.
Straight into the basket, and here’s what hustle plays are all about. You got three Phoenix players around Caitlin Clark, and yeah, it fits I mean, Caitlin to the ground, and ooh, that’s a A hand to the neck and then Alyssa Thomas steps over. See, that’s the kind of stuff that can incite some future trouble. The refs were right there. This didn’t happen in some corner of the court where the officials had a bad angle. It happened in the middle of the floor, in plain sight, and not one whistle.
Clark stayed in the game for a while after that, but she left in the third quarter with a back injury, and the Fever lost 111 to 109, two points. They were right in that game, competing, and then Clark was gone. None of this is new from Thomas.
Back in 2024, she took Clark out with a hard body check that the refs also swallowed their whistles on, and the league basically moved on.
Take another look here at the heavy contact. A little bit of a shoulder there.
Not a little They did a lot of a shoulder there for Alyssa Thomas. Yeah, they’re they’re not going to look at this. I don’t think they might.
gotten the fans here fired up. One analyst documented at least four instances of Thomas hitting Clark with cheap shots across their matchups, and only one of those was ever called as a foul, and that call got reversed. So, the pattern with Clark specifically goes back to her rookie season.
But, it’s not just Clark. In the 2025 playoffs, Thomas hit Napheesa Collier so hard that Collier left the game with a left leg injury and hasn’t come back since. The tip was clean by Thomas.
Look at that. And they banged knees after. Napheesa Collier She has 21 points.
Eight rebounds, eight assists, and B is being helped back to the locker room. Let’s go over to Angel Gray. Yeah, I’m watching her walk through the tunnel right now.
She is clearly
Cheryl Reeve, the Minnesota Lynx head coach, lost her mind over it publicly, and the whole league took notice. Thomas kept playing. Then, in 2025, Thomas clotheslined Angel Reese and picked up a flagrant two for slamming her to the ground.
And during Unrivaled, Thomas targeted Cameron Brink’s already broken nose. Brink had a broken nose, and Thomas went at it anyway. any bumps to the face.
Oh, gosh. This got to be so tough. Cameron just with the wherewithal getting hit and still made the basket.
That was super impressive.
So, we’re talking about Clark, Collier, Reese, and Brink across different seasons, different competitions, and different teams. That’s not a player who occasionally plays too hard.
That’s a player with a clear history of going after people in ways that cross the line, and the league keeps handing out the lightest possible response or nothing at all. Clark leaving in the third quarter cost the Fever a two-point game. And it happened because Thomas was allowed to do whatever she wanted for most of the night.
And the worst part of this whole situation isn’t Thomas. Thomas is who Thomas is at this point. The worst part is what was happening on the Indiana Fever sideline while all of this unfolded. during the game, have you seen that to that have any impact on her health in this one? I just saw it. Um I’m not sure if it had any impact on the health or her health or not.
Um but it was egregious. Um the fact that it was a no call. Um I heard about it at halftime.
I brought it to the attention of the officials at halftime. Yet, we still had 11 fouls in the in the fourth quarter to their two. They still shot 24 free throws in the second half.
So, Stephanie White gets to the postgame podium and tells the media she didn’t see the Thomas incident in real time. She found out about it at halftime. That’s her answer.
I didn’t see it in real time. Yeah, I was surprised. Surprised?
Your player got punched in the throat, knee’d in the groin, and stepped over on the floor, and your word for it is surprised? I I just Number one, you got to call it. It’s absolutely egregious and utterly disrespectful.
And then number two, you’re coming in here aware of what happened two nights ago, and that still happens? Absolutely unacceptable. Absolutely unacceptable. Now, White did eventually call it egregious. She called the fist to the throat crazy and dangerous, and said the non-call was absolutely unacceptable. Those are strong words, right?
But she delivered every single one of them at a postgame press conference after the final buzzer, after the Fever already lost by two points, after Clark already left the building with a back injury. The words didn’t cost White anything, and they didn’t change anything, either.
And the reckless closeout that they actually review, and the foot still comes down on top of the defender’s foot, that wasn’t upgraded?
Absolutely disrespectful. We have a generational talent and a WNBA superstar who had two cheap shots right there that weren’t called. And I just say again, absolutely unacceptable. And here’s what makes the I didn’t see it live excuse so strange. White had an entire coaching staff on that bench with her. She had assistants whose entire job is to track what’s happening on the floor, especially when a player goes down.
So, someone knew. White herself admitted she was told about it at halftime, which means she walked back out for the second half with full knowledge that her star player had been assaulted on the court during the first half, and she didn’t do anything visible that changed the ref’s behavior or protected Clark for the rest of the game. Contrast this with Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve after Thomas hurt Napheesa Collier in the 2025 playoffs, didn’t wait for any podium. Jim Peterson, the assistant coach, had a come together.
Reeve went so hard at the officials in the moment that she got ejected. She called the officiating effing malpractice after the game and demanded a change of leadership at the league level when it comes to officiating.
That cost her a $15,000 fine, believed to be the largest individual fine in WNBA history, and a suspension that meant she couldn’t coach game four, a game the Lynx lost to end their season. Reeve paid a real price for going to war for her player. Nobody questions whether she fought for Collier. The officiating crew that we had tonight, for the leadership to deem those three people semifinals playoff worthy is malpractice. I’m good. I can take a note with the best of them.
I don’t think we should have to play through more than what they did. They got players. Masha’s on the glass, and think cracked.
And there’s no call. Becky Hammon does the same thing for A’ja Wilson. When Wilson gets hit with bad contact or the officiating goes sideways, Hammon is in the refs’ faces.
She’s calling out the league publicly, and she’s on record saying the physicality in the WNBA is out of control, and that this level of physicality would not fly in the NBA. Hammon makes noise that forces people to respond. That’s what it looks like when a coach actually intends to protect her star player.
White’s response operated in a completely different register. It felt managed, like someone who’d already decided how much to say and how to say it without actually making the league uncomfortable or putting any real pressure on anyone. She called the play dangerous, and she’s right.
It was dangerous, but coaches who mean business don’t save that for a press conference. They make it impossible for the refs and the league to ignore it while the game is still happening.
After having coached AT before, were you surprised by the incident? Yeah, I mean, I look, I I think that I was I didn’t see it in real time. Um, and so when I went back to see it, um, yeah, I was surprised. Um, I was more surprised that it wasn’t seen by the officials in real time.
You know, I think the the the eye discipline, it for for lack of a better term, sometimes I feel like all the officials are watching the ball and nobody’s watching the play. Um, you have a player that’s down on the ground, certainly some things are going to happen. Um, so I was I was very disappointed that they didn’t see that in real time. White even chalked up the missed calls to poor eye discipline from the officials, saying they were watching the ball and nobody’s watching the play when a player is down. That’s a reasonable technical observation. It’s also the most bloodless possible way to describe a situation where your player got punched in the throat.
The gap between what White delivered and what Reeve or Hammon would have done isn’t about different personalities or coaching styles. It’s about urgency. And to understand why that urgency is missing, you have to go back to when Stephanie White was coaching Alyssa Thomas.
Let’s talk about who Stephanie White actually is to Alyssa Thomas, because it’s not a casual connection. White coached Thomas at the Connecticut Sun for the 2023 and 2024 seasons. Two full seasons.
DeWanna Bonner was there, too, playing under White in that same Connecticut system. So, when Thomas ran that physical plan against Clark on June 24th, she wasn’t doing it against some random opposing coach. She was doing it in front of the woman who spent two years coaching her.
Who knows exactly how Thomas plays and why Thomas plays that way, because White helped build it. After White left the Sun and took the Fever head coaching job, she gave an interview where she talked about Clark’s game and what she saw as a weakness in it. She said Clark doesn’t like physicality.
She said that’s where you get her. A coach publicly putting her own star player’s weakness on record for any team in the league to hear, including the Phoenix Mercury, where Alyssa Thomas now plays.
And you can hear Kate Stephanie White look at look just listen to what she said. level of physicality that that that they’re able to play with against her. Um, you know, I knew it as an opponent. I knew it as an opponent.
You notice when Stephanie White says a complete BS, she always got It was a like
We don’t like it. We don’t like it. Um, that sometimes it can be a blessing in disguise because everybody else um finds themselves
Finds themselves.
You don’t like it. I knew it as an opponent. it as an opponent.
We don’t like it. Now, maybe White meant it as an honest scouting observation. Maybe she was trying to say Clark needs to toughen up or adjust her game.
But it doesn’t matter what she meant, because what she produced was a public blueprint that told every physical defender in the league exactly where to attack Clark. And the player most likely to hear that and act on it is the one White spent two seasons coaching at the Sun. Thomas didn’t invent the idea of going physical at Clark.
She’d been doing it since 2024. But the specific framing that Clark’s weakness is physicality, and that’s how you neutralize her, that sounds exactly like a coaching philosophy White developed while she was still running the Sun’s defense. Thomas plays the way she plays because players don’t develop their style in a vacuum.
Coaches shape that. White shaped Thomas for 2 years, and then White told the world how to use that style against Clark. This is one of the wildest games I have ever watched in my life.
I watched Caitlin Clark get punched in the throat. I watched Caitlin Clark get knee’d in the groin, get knee’d in the ribs. I watched Caitlin Clark hit the ground repeatedly.
For months now, I’ve been talking about how Stephanie White’s system will lead to a Caitlin Clark injury.
So, picture what June 24th actually looked like from that angle. Thomas is running a physical game plan against Clark that lines up almost exactly with what White described as the way to get her.
Bonner is still in the league, still connected to that whole Connecticut network. And White is standing on the opposite sideline, watching her former player execute the exact approach she publicly outlined. And her response afterward is that she didn’t see it live.
This doesn’t need to be some elaborate conspiracy to be a real problem. It just needs to be what it plainly looks like. A coach who spent 2 years with Thomas, who knows Thomas’s game inside and out, who then publicly identified Clark’s weakness in a way that handed Thomas a specific target, and who now responds to Thomas crossing a serious line with carefully measured press conference language that puts no real pressure on anyone. And again, coach Stephanie White also said this after the game. Cheap shots, disrespectful, she’s not officiated the same as other stars in this league, and she should be. She should have that grace.
She should be granted that privilege to have a whistle that protects her. To have a whistle that keeps her out on the floor. To have a whistle that allows her to play her game. White knows how Thomas plays. She knows Thomas isn’t accidentally physical. It’s not incidental contact that gets out of hand sometimes.
Thomas plays with intent and White coached that intent for two full seasons. When Thomas knee Clark in the groin and put a fist to her throat, White wasn’t watching some stranger do something unpredictable. She was watching someone she knows extremely well do something that fits entirely within how that player has always operated.
The I didn’t see it excuse lands completely differently once you place it next to two seasons of White coaching Thomas and one interview where White publicly handed out the blueprint. It stops reading like a coaching staff oversight and starts reading like a choice. And while everyone’s debating that choice, the league stepped in with its own response to what Thomas did and somehow managed to make the whole situation worse.
It was just announced that Alyssa Thomas is suspended for one game after receiving a flagrant foul two penalty for recklessly making contact with her fist to the throat of Caitlin Clark, the WNBA has announced. And this was pretty quick. This is actually quicker than I expected the WNBA to act and review the play from last night.
This is also new because I, from what I can remember, I don’t think they’ve upgraded anything. All of these egregious fouls that we’ve seen over the past two years, I actually don’t think they’ve upgraded any of them to suspensions after the fact. So, I’m really glad that they did take it this far.
I think it’s well deserved. On June 25th, the WNBA announced their decision. They reviewed the Thomas incident, upgraded it to a flagrant foul two for recklessly making contact with her fist to the throat area of Clark, called it a non-basketball act, and handed down the punishment.
One game. Thomas will miss the Mercury’s road game against the Toronto Tempo on Saturday. One game for a throat punch, a knee to the groin, and stepping over a player on the floor.
The league framed this as the system working, and technically that’s not wrong. The post-game review caught what the refs missed in real time, a penalty got applied, and the process ran exactly how it was designed to run. But one game is the absolute minimum serious response the league could give without looking like they did nothing at all, and everyone watching knew it. She should be fired. Kelsey Plum should be out the door. She should be out the door.
This is a joke. As opposed to sending a real statement, I’m talking 10 games, 20 games. A massive fine.
They have handed down a one-game suspension to Alyssa Thomas. This league is not serious at all.
People online were not quiet about it.
The reactions ranged from calling it a joke to demanding Thomas get banned indefinitely or expelled from the league entirely, and these weren’t just Clark fans being dramatic. One comment that went everywhere put it plainly. Wow, Alyssa Thomas just gets a one-game suspension for straight-up throat punching Caitlin Clark.
So in the WNBA, you can assault your colleague and score a day off? That’s not hyperbole, that’s just math. One missed game is a day off.
It’s nothing. And the people saying it should have been three games minimum aren’t wrong either, especially when you factor in that Thomas had already tried to elbow Clark just two days before this incident. So we’re not talking about a player who had one bad game and the league came down on her.
We are talking about a player with a documented history of dangerous contact across multiple seasons, multiple opponents, and multiple leagues, and the WNBA’s answer to the most serious incident in that history is one Saturday on the bench. This is ridiculous. The league does not want to clean itself up.
This This league does not want to grow. This league does not want to further itself and better itself. Upon postgame review, the Phoenix Mercury’s Alyssa Thomas has received a flagrant foul two penalty and one game suspension for recklessly making contact with her fist to the throat area of Indiana Fever Caitlin Clark.
missing both plays in real-time is a whole separate problem that the one-game suspension doesn’t touch at all. Upgrading a foul after the game doesn’t give Clark her health back, and it doesn’t give the Fever those two points back either. Postgame review catches things, sure, but it can’t protect players while the game is actually happening, and that’s the part that needs fixing.
Other leagues have worked this out. The NHL has specific protocols for dangerous contact to the head, and the NFL runs an escalating discipline system for repeat offenders that actually changes player behavior because the cost goes up every time. The WNBA’s approach of reviewing things after the fact and handing out the minimum sends a very clear message to every physical player in the league.
The price for hurting Clark is one missed game, so do the math yourself. And now, not only do they have the treatment for the last 3 years, and now they got last night, but even worse, the pathetic suspension makes this look even worse. It makes it look terrible.
They have The league has no self-awareness whatsoever. It’s crazy. Cathy Engelbert publicly praised the league’s review process after the suspension came down.
And that’s the kind of statement that sounds like support without actually demanding anything change. Praising a process that just produced a one-game suspension for a throat punch isn’t advocacy for Clark. It’s cover for the league.
And the league really can’t afford to look like it’s not protecting Clark because Clark is the reason the WNBA’s numbers look the way they do right now. Viewership records, sold-out arenas, mainstream media attention, all of it connects directly back to Clark being in the league and being must-watch every single night. The league’s response to her getting punched in the throat on camera was one game, which means every team in the WNBA now knows exactly what it cost to put her on the floor.
Clark’s going to come back, but none of that changes what actually happened. Clark’s own head coach used to coach the player who punched her in the throat, publicly told the world that physicality is where you get Clark, and then responded to a violent on-court incident by saying she didn’t see it live. The league gave Thomas one game.
White gave Clark a press conference. Did Caitlin Clark’s injury just confirm and reveal Stephanie White’s anti-Caitlin Clark plan? Let me know down in the comments.
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Caitlin Clark’s INJURY SCHEMED By Stephanie White And Alyssa Thomas ALL ALONG! THIS is HUGE! #caitlinclark #wnba #caitlinclarkinjury #sophiecunningham #stephaniewhite #alyssathomas #caitlynclark #basketball #indianafever #womenssports #basketballplayer #caitlinclarkhighlights #caitlinclarknews #wnbanews #phoenixmercury #angelreese #ajawilson #paigebueckers Alyssa Thomas of WNBA Phoenix Mercury attacked Caitlin Clark of WNBA Indiana Fever while she lay on the floor, and the refs didn’t call a single thing. Clark left the game in the third quarter with a back injury, and the Indiana Fever lost a game they were right in the middle of. But what makes this whole thing so much worse isn’t Thomas, it’s not even the refs. It’s the woman standing on the Indiana Fever sideline, Stephanie White, who used to coach Alyssa Thomas herself, and her reaction to all of it was almost disturbingly calm – it’s as if Alyssa Thomas was just following the plan of Stephanie White to neutralize Caitlin back during their days together in the Connecticut Sun. 🔔 Click the LINK To Show Your Love For Caitlin Clark : https://www.youtube.com/@BasketballTopStories?sub_confirmation=1 🏀 At Basketball Top Stories, we bring the hottest and best features from across basketball. LIKE the video, SUBSCRIBE now, and TURN ON all notifications for more Women’s Basketball, WNBA, and Caitlin Clark Content, Commentary, and Stories. Click the link BELOW if Caitlin Clark should win the MVP! https://www.youtube.com/@BasketballTopStories?sub_confirmation=1 _________________________________________________________________ About Basketball Top Stories: 📺 Videos about Women’s Basketball, WNBA, and the amazing women in the league 🎥 Written, voiced, and produced by Basketball Top Stories team 🔔 Subscribe now for more Women’s Basketball, WNBA, and Caitlin Clark Content, Commentary, Analysis, and Stories. For any inquiries or concerns, email us at basketballtopstories1@myyahoo.com ⚠️ Copyright and Fair Use Disclaimers • We use images and content in accordance with the YouTube Fair Use copyright guidelines. • Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act 1976 states: “Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.” • This video may contain certain copyrighted video clips, pictures, or photographs, the use of which were not explicitly authorized by the copyright holder(s), but which we believe in good faith are protected by US federal law and the fair use doctrine for one or more of the reasons noted above. No copyright infringement intended – ALL RIGHTS BELONG TO THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS. • We clearly understand that we are not allowed to use clips of moments from your favorite show edited together with little or no narrative. In our content you would clearly see that this is not the case. All the clips we use are of similar subject, and we clearly explain how they are connected together, not only that we also add our own personal opinion, context, analysis, and commentary to each clip we show. These clips are mainly used to drive the discussion with our viewer. • The videos are made in compliance with YouTube’s Fair Use Policy because we ideate, script, and produce a concise story, adding value through additional information, analysis, and / or subjective commentary. We aim to celebrate and give the spotlight to the incredible athletes across the WNBA, to be enjoyed around the world. Whether you’re a long-time fan or new to the league, our content is designed to entertain, educate, and inspire. ⚠️ Content Disclaimer: • Content Context: This video may include discussions of theoretical perspectives that have been circulated on the internet and reported by various outlets. This content is provided for educational and informative purposes and should not be considered as endorsed facts or absolute truths. However, we have taken great lengths to research key facts and statistics up to the publishing date. • Intention of Content: This channel does not intend to defame, slander, or discredit any individuals or organizations or groups mentioned in this video. The information is presented to stimulate thoughtful discussion and critical thinking among viewers. • Educational Purpose: The content in this video is intended to foster understanding and discussion around topics that may be complex and controversial. It is designed to encourage viewers to critically analyze and seek out additional authoritative sources for further clarification.
