WNBA Players and Coaches Criticize Increased Fouls in Season's First Week

The WNBA spent the offseason promising to fix its officiating problems. Less than a week into the 2026 season, players and coaches across the league question whether officials have overcorrected.

After years of complaints about inconsistent calls, excessive physicality and poor accountability, Commissioner Cathy Engelbert acknowledged the issue during All-Star Weekend last July. "As we go forward on the officiating, we hear the concerns. We take that employee input," Engelbert said. "Every play is reviewed. We spend hours and hours and hours. Obviously, we use that then to follow up with officials’ training."

She added, "It’s something we need to continue to work on. As our game has evolved, so does our officiating. So we’re on it."

The league formed an offseason officiating task force with players and coaches to address physicality and consistency. Changes showed up right away in the 2026 season.

Through the first 11 games, teams average 22.3 fouls and 23.1 free throws per game, compared to 17.5 fouls and 18.2 free throws last season. Five games already saw a team attempt at least 25 free throws; the entire 2025 season had only 25 such games.

Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve, who drew the largest fine in league history for blasting officials in last year’s playoffs, said the current officiating does not match task force discussions. "What I’m confused about, being on the task force, we talked about unnecessary physicality. We didn’t say we want to call marginal fouls. We never brought that up," Reeve said after Minnesota’s opener.

"It takes a little bit of time for sure to calibrate, both them and us. … Obviously, we’ll continue to work with the league on getting right because we’re not the only team sitting here wondering why everything is a foul."

Days earlier, Reeve had expressed optimism. "How our game has looked the last two years is not how we want it going forward," she said. "We’re working really hard because we don’t want the level of physicality that we’ve seen in our game, and so I’m confident that the game is gonna therefore be more fluid — freedom of movement."

New York Liberty star Breanna Stewart called Sunday’s game against the Washington Mystics "insane" for lasting two hours and 41 minutes. "It disrupts everyone’s flow," Stewart said. "This game was 2 hours and 41 minutes long. That’s insane… I know it’s going to take time of, like, figuring out what’s the standard of what’s going to be called, but there’s calls that are being called that are unnecessary on both sides, and then there’s no flow."

Dallas Wings rookie Azzi Fudd voiced confusion from preseason. "I thought you could be physical in the W and anytime you touch someone, it’s a foul," Fudd said. "So I’m not really sure whether to be physical, whether to — I don’t know. I’m still figuring that out."

Wings guard Arike Ogunbowale joked that players might defend with hands straight up. "We can see they’re calling a little different," Ogunbowale said. "I guess we just have to adapt, because that’s going to happen… It’s been a long time since I had three fouls in the first half and almost fouling out. I guess show our hands and see what we can do."

Indiana Fever coach Stephanie White, another officiating critic last season, said the league needed to overcorrect. "We have asked, in all of our offseason, have asked officials to call everything," White said. "The challenge, and the question sometimes: Is it consistent? So that’d be the next growth phase and growth area. But this is what we need to clean up some of the stuff that we saw last year. So there is going to be frustration early, but it’s necessary."

After Indiana’s opening-week loss to Dallas, White repeated the point. "This is what we want," she said. "We need to overcorrect, so to speak, so that we have freedom of movement, so it’s a free-flowing offense."

Nearly everyone agreed officiating needed fixes after the 2025 playoffs, marred by technical fouls, free-throw disparities, suspensions and public outbursts. Reeve once called a playoff crew selection "f---ing malpractice." Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon said physicality was "out of control" and could lead to fights. Stars including Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Kelsey Plum, Natasha Cloud and Sophie Cunningham — fined three times — all criticized officials.