Of all the fans, coaches and players that complained about the excess physicality in the WNBA, Breanna Stewart was different. “This is the best league in the world and nobody’s going to give you anything easy,” the Liberty star said in 2024. “Understanding that and learning how to play through it. This level, they’re the fastest, the strongest, and the quickest.” Now that the league is changing its position on it, Stewart has called out the new style of officiating.
The Liberty faced off against the Washington Mystics and the young side took them to overtime. A game that featured 11 lead changes and saw a tied score 8 times, the experienced Liberty took over. A 13-8 overtime win meant the Liberty won the fixture 98-93. After the game, Breanna Stewart pointed out the sensitive whistle that gave a cumulative 58 fouls in this game.
“It disrupts everyone’s flow, not just my team, both sides of the game. This game was 2 hours and 41 minutes long. That’s insane,” Stewart told the media. “We said it last game too. I know it’s going to take time figuring out the standard of what’s going to be called, but there are calls being made that are unnecessary on both sides, and then there’s no flow. So, I still don’t know.”
Last year we had 34.8 fouls called per game and this year it has been 44.06 in the small sample size so far. Clearly, the referees and the league are clamping down on the physicality. But the players are still used to the old ways. Those instincts won’t go away soon, which is causing these fouls.
Beyond Breanna Stewart, players and coaches like Cheryl Reeve, Napheesa Collier, Becky Hammon and Stephanie White believe this is the right direction. But even Reeve pointed out that they are still figuring out the correct amount of physicality.
“We talked about some unnecessary physicality. We didn’t say we want to call marginal fouls. Never brought that up. It takes a little bit of time for sure to calibrate both them and us, but I know that when we’re trying to get open on the side out-of-bounds and we’re being held by the shoulders, that’s the kind of stuff that we’re talking about that you have to call those plays,” Reeve said. “Obviously, we’ll continue to work with the league on getting this right because we’re not the only team sitting here wondering why everything’s a foul.”
So Stewart is not the only one to complain about the uptick in fouls. These foul counts may come down once the players figure out the new standards. Because of this, the scoring has gone up. Teams have scored 88.6 points per game, up from 81.5 points. So the game is going towards the NBA-style direction, allowing the players to score more.
However, the league and the players need to figure out the balance between the two inorder to preserve the essence of the WNBA. This was the first time the Liberty committed more than 30 fouls since 2007. Yet beyond the foul trouble and constant whistles, the Mystics exposed another weakness that could haunt the Liberty all season.
Breanna Stewart & Co. Must Fix This Major Weakness to Become Championship Contenders
The Liberty struggled when Jonquel Jones was out last year. And the biggest thing they missed is her rebounding. The team as a whole struggled on the boards, getting 33.7 rebounds per game, ranking 7th in the league. When it comes to offensive rebounds, they ranked dead last in the league with 6.8 per game.
After a first-round exit last year, they have changed coaches and added Satou Sabally, Han Xu and Racquel Carrera to make the team even better on paper. However, the Mystics game exposed the rebounding flaw yet again.
The Mystics outrebounded 42-34 as second-year Kiki Iriafen imposed herself with 12 rebounds while Sahkira Austin added 12. On the other hand, no one apart from Stewart and Jones had more than 5 rebounds. Pauline Astier and Xu combined for 10. After the game Stewart recognized it as a major issue as well.
“Washington Mystics have always been a great rebounding team. Sometimes we were out of position, and it was a struggle to go after the long rebounds, but this is a point of emphasis and something we need to be better at,” Stewart said. “Given the cards we were dealt, I thought we did pretty good. We were playing overtime without both of our centers and just continued to fight through it.”
Unless Liberty finds a solution to this, the top teams will take advantage of this fatal flaw. In that first-round series against Phoenix, the only game they won was where they outrebounded the Mercury. In the final game of the series, the Mercury had a whopping 49 rebounds. So, if they manage to take that next step, this Liberty side could become a contender.
