Fever coach Stephanie White facing intense backlash over Dijonai Carrington comments

Indiana Fever head coach Stephanie WHite received negative comments from fans after her comments following DiJonai Carrington’s hard foul on Sophie Cunningham.

Indiana traveled to Chicago for a regular-season matchup on Saturday, but the game heated up early, with Carrington committing a hard foul on Cunningham.

A breakaway layup for Cunningham should have been an easy two points after a steal in the first quarter. But Carrington contested the shot, which resulted in a foul on her head. Carrington swung her arm and hit Cunningham across the face/neck area while she was in the air, which knocked her hard under the basket.

This resulted in a Flagrant 2 foul, and Carrington was ejected. However, Coach White spoke highly of Carrington during her post-game interview.

“One of the things about Nai is that she’s gonna play her butt off, man,” White said. “She’s going to compete nobody’s gonna go walking in for a layup and so I don’t oppose the hard foul but I also don’t think that she intentionally went for the neck.”

Indiana overcame the intensity and came away with a 90-86 win, recording their 20th win of the season.

Look at @StephanieWhite completely go out of her way to defend DiJonai Carrington after she clotheslined Sophie during that layup.

Even the ABC commentators said it was clearly an intentional Flagrant 2. But Steph is defending the DiJonai because she taught her and AT to do this pic.twitter.com/nxH05NlpVg

— #Caitlin4MVP (@WNBA_Analyst) August 9, 2026

Fans blasted Stephanie White for take on Dijonai Carrington-Sophie Cunningham incident

This remark by Indiana’s head tactician has angered more than a few fans. They accused White of favoring Carrington instead of protecting her own player.

“Mind blowing how blatantly she just hates on her own players. She is a vile person,” a fan said.

“These coaches are an embarrassment…first step in fixing a problem is admit there is a problem..if you keep brushing it aside what you will eventually have is Caitlin or Sophie will get seriously hurt or their career wil end and then its back to a second job for these girls,” a user stated.

“A coach is supposed to defend their players. DiJonai could have seriously hurt Sophie Cunningham. Players in the air are completely vulnerable and injury risk is signicantly elevated. “Didn’t intentionally go for the neck” lol,” read a comment.

“Look at Caitlin, she’s like WTF?” another fan said.

“Can they fire this lady already?! ,” a user declared.