Fever get ‘good news’ on MRIs for Sydney Colson, Sophie Cunningham as injuries pile up for Indiana

The Indiana Fever received “good news” after MRIs for Sydney Colson and Sophie Cunningham revealed that neither suffered a long-term injury, coach Stephanie White told reporters after practice on Sunday. 

Colson (upper left leg) and Cunningham (right ankle) both left the Fever’s 85-83 loss to the Connecticut Sun on Friday. While the imaging was positive, it’s unclear if either will be available for the Fever’s next game on Tuesday against the Washington Mystics. 

“I think we got good news from both of their MRIs, as good of news as you can get,” White said. “And so right now, it’s a day-to-day thing. We’re looking forward to hopefully them returning at some point sooner rather than later, but at the same time, it’s how each of them progresses in their rehab.”

With Caitlin Clark (left quad) also sidelined until at least June 10, the Fever are temporarily down to eight healthy players and hoping to sign a replacement player for Tuesday night. 

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Jack Maloney

With just under 90 seconds remaining in the first quarter of Friday’s game, Colson was driving to her right and lost control of the ball. Sun guard Jacy Sheldon dove to the floor to try and gain possession, and rolled up Colson’s leg in the process. As the Sun took off the other way, Colson remained down. 

After the Sun scored, the Fever took a timeout to stop play, and Colson was attended to by the team’s medical staff. Colson briefly tried to remain on the bench, but then hobbled back to the locker room. While she walked under her own power, she was moving gingerly. 

White called Colson’s injury a “gut punch,” and said it made the team “reconfigure” what they were doing on the offensive end. 

“It affected us in the second quarter, no doubt,” White said. “Not having another primary ballhandler… it kind of punched us in the gut for a little while. But the reality is this stuff happens. We’ve seen it time and time again in our league. We can’t take two and a half quarters to figure it out.”

Colson, who made her WNBA debut in 2011, signed with the Fever in free agency this winter. She was primarily brought in for her experience, and had only received spot minutes in the team’s first four games. 

When Clark went down with a quad injury, however, Colson was inserted into the Fever’s starting lineup. As the only other true point guard on the roster, she was the natural choice. 

“[Colson] is an elite communicator,” White said earlier this week. “She is in every huddle that we have, whether she’s on the floor or not. She sees things from that point guard position. And getting us into offense. It’s gonna look different without the ball in Caitlin’s hands. What are our looks, who can we get our looks for? And then the ability to communicate that to everybody in live action. That’s the piece that we’re still growing with. We can’t call a timeout every time to get a matchup or recognize a switch, so she can help us with that on the floor.” 

White also said Cunningham would get a chance to run the offense in Clark’s stead, but she didn’t get much of an opportunity Friday. 

In the middle of the fourth quarter, Cunningham set an off-ball screen for Kelsey Mitchell, which Sheldon blew up by running straight through Cunningham’s chest. As Cunningham tried to regain her balance, she rolled her right ankle — the same one she injured during the preseason, which kept her out of the first two games of the regular season — and collapsed to the ground in serious pain. 

Cunningham remained on the floor for a while as the Fever’s medical staff assessed the situation. She was eventually brought to her feet and had to be helped to the locker room. Cunningham did not return to the game. 

The Fever are now 0-2 without Clark in the lineup and have fallen to 2-4 on the season. Clark’s initial two-week timeline has her out for at least two more games, and the earliest she could return is June 10 against the Atlanta Dream. If Colson and Cunningham are both sidelined until then as well, things could get even uglier for the Fever.