INDIANAPOLIS — Caitlin Clark wants everyone to mark the date of her eventual suspension on the calendar. Because, she said, it’s going to happen soon at the rate the referees are giving her technical fouls — even if it’s just for clapping.
Clark picked up her fifth tech of the season on Monday night after she got tangled up with Phoenix forward DeWanna Bonner by the free-throw line. She clapped emphatically after she got called for a foul, and the officials gave her a tech, too.
Now, she is three technical fouls away from receiving a one-game suspension from the league. Players are automatically suspended for one game without pay after they pick up their eighth technical foul.
“It’s ridiculous,” Clark said following the Fever’s 86-77 win over Phoenix. “I got a technical for clapping. We should all just go on the calendar now and pick a game that I’m going to be suspended for if I’m gonna get technicals for clapping … if any technical should be taken away, it should be that one, if it’s truly for clapping, that’s what they said they gave it to me for was for clapping. It’s just ridiculous, so I don’t understand it at all.”
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That entanglement between Clark and Bonner ultimately set off a skirmish between the two teams, which ended in Bonner needing to be separated from Sophie Cunningham and Myisha Hines-Allen.
After the kerfuffle ended, Bonner and Cunningham got offsetting techs; Hines-Allen and Alyssa Thomas also got offsetting techs. Bonner ended up shooting a technical free throw because of Clark’s tech, which she missed.
“I’m gonna play with emotion, I’m gonna play with passion, and if they’re going to give me a technical foul for clapping, then so be it. That’s their choice,” Clark said. “The league can come back and review that play, and I’d love to hear what they say of the reasoning of why I got the technical foul in that situation … I said ‘Why’d you get me a technical foul?’ and she said because I was clapping and instigating. I said ‘OK then, you just don’t like competitive basketball,’ and that’s just facts, that’s just reality. So, I’m disappointed in them.”
Clark now leads the league, along with Angel Reese, in techs. And, with Clark picking up five only 17 games into the season, it’s something both she and the Fever coaching staff need to be aware of with 27 games left.
This isn’t the first time Clark has gotten close to the technical foul limit, either. She ended her rookie season with six technical fouls, which was one away from suspension in the league’s former threshold of seven in 2024. She got two in 13 games played in 2025.
“I mean, she’s got to be aware, certainly,” Fever coach Stephanie White said postgame. “I think there are some that we could do without, there are natural things that happen, the energy of the game creates when you do get those, but there are some that we can be a little bit more in control. So, yes, we’ll continue to remind her, and I think she has to have an awareness.”
A player reaching the technical foul limit is not common, but regular; Reese served a one-game suspension after she hit the limit in 2025, and both Teaira McCowan and Natasha Cloud served suspensions in 2024.
After a player hits the technical limit and is suspended, they would serve another suspension for every second technical they accrue throughout the rest of the season. Diana Taurasi was suspended two separate times in 2013 for her seventh and ninth technicals, respectively. Taurasi was also suspended in 2016 and 2018 for hitting the technical foul limit.
Chloe Peterson is the Indiana Fever beat reporter for IndyStar. Reach her at chloe.peterson@indystar.com or follow her on X at @chloepeterson67. Get IndyStar’s Indiana Fever and Caitlin Clark coverage sent directly to your inbox with our Caitlin Clark Fever newsletter. Subscribe to IndyStar TV: Fever for in-depth analysis, behind-the-scenes coverage and more.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Caitlin Clark nears suspension with ‘ridiculous’ technical foul call in Fever win vs Mercury
Reporting by Chloe Peterson, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
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By Chloe Peterson, Indianapolis Star | USA TODAY Network
