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Dallas Wings forward Jessica Shepard, left, questions a call with referee Marat Kogut, right, during the first half of a WNBA basketball game against the Chicago Sky in Dallas, Sunday, July 12, 2026. (AP Photo\/LM Otero) <\/p>\nDallas Wings forward Jessica Shepard, left, questions a call with referee Marat Kogut, right, during the first half of a WNBA basketball game against the Chicago Sky in Dallas, Sunday, July 12, 2026. (AP Photo\/LM Otero) <\/p>\n
NEW YORK \u2014 Cheryl Reeve has seen a lot of improvements in officiating this season and it\u2019s helped the WNBA have record offensive numbers so far through the first half of the season.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s still areas that need to be worked on, but it will take more than 20 games for everything to be cleaned up.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen great improvements on the very things that were broken,\u201d the Minnesota Lynx coach said. \u201cThere was a level of impeding players and trying to cut off a screen. We don\u2019t want the unnecessary physicality.\u201d<\/p>\n
The league put together a task force, which Reeve is on, in the offseason to help clean up some of the physicality in the game. The main point of emphasis was to help players\u2019 freedom of movement. Despite some hiccups early on, it has led to more offense as teams are averaging around 86 points a game \u2014 the highest ever. They are shooting nearly 45% from the field \u2014 also the best in league history.<\/p>\n
So far this season there have been roughly 4 1\/2 more fouls called per game with 75% of them being non-shooting fouls.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s fair for our coaches and players to be able to say we\u2019re happy and we think positive things are taking place, but still I disagree with the calls that are affecting our team tonight,\u201d Monty McCutchen, who is the head of WNBA officials, told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want coaches to remain advocates for their teams,\u201d McCutchen added. \u201cWe have gotten positive feedback that we\u2019re on the right track. we\u2019ll continue to work through specifics when we fail that task and we\u2019ll continue to check in with the officiating task force to make sure that we\u2019re aligned with the expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n
By no means are things perfect. Coaches and players have complained of inconsistencies between officiating crews. What might be called a foul in one half might not be deemed a foul at another point in the game. Obvious fouls are getting missed too.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s never going to be perfect, but we\u2019re trending in the right direction,\u201d Reeve said. \u201cWe\u2019ve put resources into this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reeve recalled a play that she asked to be reviewed during her team\u2019s game against Dallas. The officials looked at the play and upgraded it to a flagrant.<\/p>\n
The league is constantly reviewing plays. Alyssa Thomas\u2019 punch to the throat of Caitlin Clark that was upgraded to a Flagrant-2 was one of four that the league reviewed that night and was the only one upgraded.<\/p>\n
Common fouls aren\u2019t the only thing on the rise. Both technical fouls and flagrant fouls are up too. There have been 124 technicals assessed this season (four more were rescinded). Last year there were 171 total. There have been 44 flagrants called this season as compared to 51 all of last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they are doing a better job at reviewing hostile acts,\u201d Reeve said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t ask for that, but if that\u2019s what it takes to clean it up (it\u2019s worth it).\u201d<\/p>\n
Not everyone is a fan of all the reviews. Las Vegas coach Becky Hammon said after a loss to Indiana last week that there were too many of them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s exhausting when they go to the review every time. I mean, these games are getting longer and longer. It\u2019s encouraging more drama,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, it\u2019s like somebody gets hit, and it\u2019s like take them to the hospital. And they jump up, and they\u2019re fine. So I actually think it\u2019s not just today. It\u2019s across the league. There\u2019s so many reviews.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dallas Wings forward Jessica Shepard, left, questions a call with referee Marat Kogut, right, during the first half…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":767332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-767331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=767331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/767332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}