Tyler Marsh hadn’t brought it up in a while, but you could tell he’d been sitting on it.
It’s been an undercurrent of frustration all season: The Sky coach is convinced his leading scorer doesn’t get enough foul calls. Watch the sideline when 6’7 center Kamilla Cardoso goes up and comes down empty-handed, and there’s Marsh, chasing after officials.
Thursday night, the tide turned — at least momentarily. Cardoso shot a season-high 11 free throws in the Sky’s win over the Sun, riding them to a game-high 26 points. It gave Marsh an opening to drive the point home.
“I can make a case that she should shoot close to 11 free throws every game,” Marsh said. “I think she gets held a ton. I think that, for someone who shoots the majority of shots in the paint, there’s just physically very little resistance that you can give without fouling her. She’s just that forceful.
“To go games where she has zero to five free throws, it just doesn’t make sense to me. And the film doesn’t lie either.”
Cardoso was the Sky’s answer to righting the ship against the Sun. They stumbled through a lackluster first half, in part because foul trouble kept her on the bench for most of it. Once she returned, she took over: 18 points in the fourth quarter, with nine trips to the line.
“I don’t remember the last time I shot a free throw,” she joked afterward.
So why was this game different?
“Just me being aggressive, and the refs finally giving me the call,” she said.
The numbers back at least part of the Sky’s argument. Cardoso shoots 4.1 free-throw attempts per game, just 20th in the league, despite taking 9.2 shots per game in the paint, eighth most.
Marsh has said throughout the season that the team regularly send clips of what they consider missed calls to the league office for review — and rarely hear back.
However, according to an Athletic report, the league did acknowledge missed calls in the Sky’s fourth-quarter collapse against the Wings in late June. That included the whistle on Cardoso in the final minute that fouled her out and led to the Wings’ go-ahead free throws.
Officiating has been a leaguewide pain point over the last two seasons. After sharp criticism from players and coaches last year, the WNBA created a task force of coaches and general managers to push for greater consistency, with an emphasis on calling illegal contact more tightly to protect freedom of movement.
Reviews have been mixed. Coaches generally concede that meaningful change takes time, but they still complain about too many consequential calls being missed. Next season, the league will add an off-site replay center designed to put more decisions in the hands of an objective third party. That’s a significant investment that shows the league is serious.
In the meantime, the Sky have to live with the whistle they get.
And right now, a lot of it is blowing on Cardoso. The whistles Marsh wants on offense find her on the other end: she’s committing 3.6 fouls per game, third most in the league. Getting that number down will take better discipline and situational awareness from Cardoso.
Silly fouls — particularly the ones she picks up far from the basket — have been an issue since she entered the league.
The Sky can’t afford them. Their offense now runs through Cardoso and isn’t built to survive her sitting long stretches. Not every opponent will let her take over a fourth quarter — some, like the Aces on Saturday, are good enough to bury the Sky before she gets the chance.
The league needs to keep fixing its officiating, and Marsh should keep advocating for his star. Cardoso’s job is to pick her battles, accept how the game is being called — and remember how badly the Sky need her on the floor.