Rickea Jackson will miss the rest of the 2026 WNBA season, news that landed just a few weeks after she was traded to the Chicago Sky. The team confirmed Jackson suffered a torn ACL during their Sunday game agaisnt the Minnesota Lynx.
Jackson crumbled to the floor during the second quarter after driving to the basket against Nia Coffey. Some, including her Sky teammate Natasha Cloud, have asserted that she suffered the injury following overly physical contact from Coffey, and have pointed to the game's referees as the ultimate culprits.
While ACL tears are a pretty common part of the game for basketball players, Cloud has made it abundantly clear she believes the refs should have called the foul before Jackson was hurt. Cloud also said that she was hit in the face during the game and that referees failed to call the foul.
The injury is another to add to a list for the Sky that's beginning to feel lenghty. Courtney Vandersloot is still out after suffering her own torn ACL last year, and DiJonai Carrington has yet to play for the Sky after being signed during free agency. (Carrington injured her foot during the 2025 postseason and had surgery ahead of the beginning of the 2026 WNBA season.) Skylar Diggins didn't play in Sunday's game after she was sidelined with an eye injury during the team's 91-83 loss to the Phoenix Mercury.
Natasha Cloud is calling attention to the refs for a good reason
Though some might have found Cloud's words bold, she's pinpointing the action (or inaction) of the refs on purpose. The 2025 WNBA season was dominated by narratives surrounding perceived excessive fouling and a lack of calls, and many said that a lot of the injuries players dealt with in 2025 were the result of that lack.
While the players were busy hammering out the details of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with the leaders of the WNBA, coaches and other people affiliated with the WNBA were organizing their own referee and fouling task force. The result is a new set of rules that dictate what is and isn't called, but the system isn't quite perfect yet.
One of the biggest complaints about fouls so far this season has been there's a lack of consistency in how fouls are being called. While some players and teams have said they like the changes, others have said they aren't good enough — and that conversation will probably continue to echo throughout the league as the new system gets figured out.
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