Sophie Cunningham injury: Stephanie White gives latest, reacts to controversial collision

Sophie Cunningham was the latest player for the Indiana Fever to go down with an injury on Sunday. That caused plenty of concern for Stephanie White in the moment and how she’s going to prepare her team to handle another absence over this week.

White reacted to Cunningham’s injury during her postgame presser following the 99-93 OT win for the Fever this afternoon. She knew it wasn’t good in losing Cunningham, also because of the severity of the injury in the moment, but also that Indiana had no time to dwell on it with two and a half quarters to go in an important game earlier today

“I’m like, ‘Holy s***'” said White. “I mean, you know, especially the way that she fell and, you know, how she was holding herself, how much pain she was in, you know, at the time? It’s like, crap.”

“You go down there, you see her and it’s like, okay, just wanting her to calm down and be able to regroup. And then it turns to problem-solving, alright. It’s how we put ourselves in position to win,” White said. “What do we need to do? You know, I think maybe that’s how I survive is going straight to problem-solving. But, you know, again, this group is just, they’re special and I’m thankful for it.”

Cunningham had her right knee rolled up on as she came over to play defense on Bria Hartley. She went down, grabbed for that knee in pain, and would soon be helped off the court, exiting with ten minutes played having scored no points but posting a rebound and turnover in the starting lineup. Now, Cunningham, set to go tomorrow for an MRI, joins Caitlin Clark (groin), who hasn’t played in a month and in just over a third of their games this season, as well as Aari McDonald (broken bone in foot) and Sydney Colson (Torn ACL) on the Fevers’ injury report.

Still, Indiana was able to rally today even with all those players out. They were down as much as 21 points but mounted the second-half comeback to get it to overtime and eventually take it by six over the Sun, as all of their starters besides Cunningham scored 14-plus points led by Kelsey Mitchell with 38 points (50% FG, 62.5% 3PT), six assists, and two steals.

With nine games left in the regular season, Indiana (19-16), who are still a 2.5-game edge to be in the playoffs, will have this whole work week without a game until they take the floor again on Friday night. That’ll give the Fever a much-needed rest and reset before their final games of the season, six of which come against teams in the playoffs currently and three against the top team in the league in the Minnesota Lynx (28-5), to try and stay in the postseason.

“It’s huge. I mean, I think, when you look at some of the standings? We’ve played a game or two games more than anybody else. We’re kind of front-loaded in some of the things that we did. You know, we need the rest, we need the recovery. We have players that have played a lot of heavy minutes, so we need that and we also need time to kind of re-calibrate,” said White. “It was a quick turnaround to figure out how we’re going to play without, you know, Aari and Syd. And now we have to figure out how we’re going to play without Sophie. And we’ve got to figure out who can play in certain roles, what are our substitution patterns going to be, what kind of wrinkles we can throw out there?”

“You know, it doesn’t get easier, and I think we come back and have Minnesota twice, right. So, it’s really good mentally, physically, and emotionally for us and then it gives us practice time, which we’re going to need,” White said.