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Indiana Fever Facing Backlash Over Coaching Decision

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Sean Deveney | Last updated May 31, 2025 12:04 AM ET

It's only six games, of course, and there are plenty of reasons why the Indiana Fever have now fallen to 2-4 after being beaten by a previously winless team for the second time this week. It was Washington on Wednesday, but on Friday, the Fever bequeathed the Connecticut Sun their debut 2025 victory.

Safe to say it was not supposed to go like this. But early losses to a pair of good teams--the Dream and Liberty--were followed by a quad injury to star guard Caitlin Clark which, in turn, was followed by the two humbling losses this week.

No one doubts Clark's star power, of course, but the organization put in too much work to bring in too many reinforcements for the Fever to look this bad without Clark.

That starts with coach Stephanie White, returning to the Fever with an impressive in place of Christie Sides. Adding players like DeWanna Bonner, Natasha Howard and Sydney Colson was supposed to make this a stifling defensive team, but the Sun and Mystics combined to shoot 61-for-129 (47.3%) in the last two games without Clark. Not very stifling.

They've also been shockingly bad in getting into transition--they've been outscored, 23-4, in the past two games without Clark.

There are excuses for all of this, of course. But increasingly, fans are suggesting that the reason the team brought in White, who had a 92-56 record as a head coach coming into 2025, was to guide the Fever through moments like this. And with White falling short, the questin is being raised: Why did the Fever fire Sides in the first place?

Sides may have been on the sideline as the Fever started 1-8 last year, but she also resided over their 19-12 bounce-back that landed Indiana in the playoffs. Watching this team struggle without Clark this week under White, it's fair to wonder if the move on Sides was not too hasty.

One fan put it bluntly: "I will keep saying, Stephanie White is a terrible head coach, Christie Sides better."

There was also this, "After 4 gms, I don’t see no difference between Christie Sides & Stephanie White coaching but some Fever fans told me she was an upgrade !!"

One fan added, "OMG, the Fever absolute (expletive) without CC... they are losing to the worse team in the league at home... Stephanie White was supposed to be the difference as opposed to Christie Sides."

And there was this: